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When park and recreation professionals envision conservation efforts, resource protection and waste management, it’s not often they picture a 300-square-foot mural installation bursting with color and depicting wildlife.
In Connecticut, City of Bristol’s Department of Parks, Recreation, Youth and Community Services (BPRYCS) is re-inventing what it means to recycle through a dynamic cross-department partnership to create a three-dimensional trash art mural.
Addressing trash and material waste production in Bristol begins at the Transfer Station. Regardless of the item discarded, how it’s transported, or where it’s disposed of, it ends up at the Transfer Station to be sorted, compacted and sent to its final destination.
Having visibly removed items from the Transfer Station in the past to be used for birdhouses and little libraries, BPRYCS recognizes the importance of visibly removing items from the local waste stream as a valuable way of reducing the perceived difficulty of recycling by the public.
Buoyed by previous success, BPRYCS turned to the Transfer Station once more to turn waste management into art with the help of a local sculptor.
Artist Stephanie Hongo, known as Sugarfox, creates intricate and detailed sculptures of animals from trash and recyclables. Starting out as an artist, Hongo had little money for materials and struggled with the amount of “waste in the world,” so naturally, trash sculpting, as she calls it, became her new medium.
In 2020, BPRYCS commissioned Hongo to create a piece spanning more than 30 feet that used materials recovered directly from the city’s Transfer Station. Hongo presented a plan to install more than 20 sculptures, ranging in size from an eight-foot-long octopus to a 12-inch fish.
With a plan in place, the BPRYCS team and Hongo went to the Transfer Station and collected items for the mural, including children’s toys, building materials, tubing, cookware, containers, rope and more. The myriad items were made from an array of materials, ranging from metal, rubber and wood to cardboard and plastic.
Upon reclaiming hundreds of items from the Transfer Station, Hongo created a three-dimensional mural installation of 22 animals sculpted exclusively from re-purposed materials that can be interpreted across all ages and demographics.
The mural is located at the entrance to the community pool, shining a light on the local waste stream and the incredible distance that waste can travel when improperly disposed of or produced in large quantities.
One year following the installation and ribbon cutting of this public art piece, Hongo’s vision has given a second life to thousands of discarded and forgotten items. In addition to beautifying the space, this project has educated and challenged the way the Bristol residents view recycling.
Erica Benoit is Community Engagement Coordinator at City of Bristol Parks, Recreation, Youth and Community Services.