Calm your mind and add new nuances to your everyday life in the plastic workshop – there is still time to sign up!

When packaging plastics are sorted into a separate bin at home, a waste truck picks them up to a processing plant, where they are crushed into small pieces and then shaped into new products. Making new plastic products from recycled plastic saves energy and other natural resources, both in terms of product manufacture and transport. However, the benefits of sorting can be difficult to grasp, as once the waste leaves from your waste station, everything happens hidden from view. “At the Get a Grip on Plastic workshop, we want to give everyone the opportunity to take a peek behind the scenes of plastic recycling. Everyone can experience first-hand how waste turns into a valuable raw material and then into a usable product,” says Outi Hynynen from the City of Espoo.

The opening of the workshop was held on 4 May in a springtime atmosphere, and workshops have been organised in two containers in the courtyard of the Kera halls for just under a month now. The workshop has been visited by student and resident groups, artists, families, holidaymakers and other interested people. “It is interesting to work with different people because plastic touches everyone in a slightly different way: for one person plastic means art, for another craft, for a third design, for a fourth entrepreneurship, for a fifth sustainable development, for a sixth chemistry and so on,” says Mona Taponen of Muoviamo, who is in charge of the workshop. “We, the organisers, are also constantly learning new things from the participants. They have new ideas for processing plastics, and together we will then plan and experiment with them,” says Aapo Kivistö-Rahnasto, a trainee from Metropolia’s Industrial Design programme and one of the workshop instructors.

Some of the plastic waste processed at the workshop comes from residents. During April, unusable polypropylene was collected at Sello and Tapiola libraries to be used as materials at the workshop. The collection box contained items such as broken buckets, plastic furniture and old DVD cases. These colourful objects are turned into beautiful recycled products at the workshop. Visitors can still bring their own discarded polypropylene items to the workshop.

At the workshop, new plastic objects are made by first crushing or cutting old plastic into small shreds or strips and then melting it into a new shape. The new shape can be created by, for example, pouring plastic into a mould, by manually shaping warm plastic wire or by ironing plastic with a regular iron. New ideas are being developed all the time – plastic is a very versatile material!

Making things by hand is not only fun but also useful. “As we spend so much time in the digital world nowadays, the importance of making things with your hands is emphasised. It is therapeutic and restorative. Touching different materials, playing with colours and using the various senses while crafting bring the focus back to your own physical self and body,” says Mona Taponen, who runs the workshop. “Working at the workshop also develops long-term thinking and design skills: first you have to choose the right material, process it into raw material, and only then can you make the new product that you originally planned,” Taponen continues. “Participating in the process of creating a plastic object broadens our view of the world around us and deepens our appreciation of our own belongings,” says Taponen.

Recycling plastic material into new products is an important part of a system where consumption is kept within planetary limits and well-being is created through more efficient use of resources, rather than inefficient squandering and disposability. As residents and consumers, we all have an important role to play in creating this system: by buying only when necessary, using as long as possible and sorting properly at the end of a product’s life, we send a message to the industry that we want to have high-quality products and that the materials we sort should be reused.

But if sorting sometimes feels frustrating, if the responsible use of plastic material is confusing or if you just want to try something new and spend a summer day learning something new, come to the plastic workshop and discover the deepest essence of plastic material! Everyone is welcome to the workshop, regardless of whether you are an experienced craftsperson or a beginner. Find out more and sign up for a free workshop on the Muoviamo website(external link, opens in a new window). See you at the plastic workshop!