Plastic is Forever

‘Its a Man Made World’ or so Barbara de Vries thinks after scouring and beachcombing in the Bahamas and places like Florida’s south only to find beauty on the beach in the washed up bits of plastic and man made debris that most others wouldn’t look twice at only possibly in disgust at the state of the worlds waste. The interest sparked a collection of handmade jewellery and has developed into an adorned range of customised Tees recently awarded most sustainable design for Barney’s Earth Day Competition.

Its a Man Made World is a project that emphasizes the havoc plastic reeks upon the earth's ecosystem. It not only recycles but also sets out to change the way we see and treat our waste.

In the movie Wall-E, a garbage robot roams our littered earth as the last fastidious cleaner and stacker of human waste.  The year is 2700, and there is no life left on earth. Seven hundred years from now. Optimistic, when we already have a plastic island twice the size of Texas floating around the central Pacific Ocean, when many rivers on almost every continent are clogged with waste, and existing landfills are filling up faster than new ones can be created.

When will we learn that there is no such place as “away”?

Barbara, a former model and fashion designer has a keen eye for beauty and design, recently started to collect beach plastic after attempting to clean the washed up litter off her favourite beach in the Bahamas.

“After so many years in the ocean, the shapes and colours are often extraordinary and inspire me into giving them a second life as a pair of earrings, a bracelet or a necklace. Each piece evolves from its original shape and I am really just the recycler.

What starts as a discarded plastic bottle top, a broken up piece of wire gridding or tangled fisherman’s rope which gets shaped and moulded, discoloured and faded by years in the ocean ends up becoming a unique piece of jewellery through a creative process of selection, design and handmade finishing by local craftspeople. From one offs to small collections these pieces have become collectors items in their own right. Strange too that the pieces themselves start to mimic the natural forms and colours of coral, shell and stone through the washing of natures own hands.

So successful is the jewellery collection that the designer is now embellishing tees and clothing with reused plastic flotsam and jetsam, illustrating that nothing is ever lost at sea.

Individual pieces start at US$95 up to $500 for more elaborate and one offs.

For more information visit:

www.itsamanmadeworld.com

Images – Gordon de Vries Studio