Styrofoam: no matter what we may do to avoid it, somehow it still ends up in our possession time after time. I mean, we do have to buy new stuff sometimes, and manufacturers still haven’t put the time and energy into finding a suitable, less planet-killing replacement. I know I have a pile of it in my basement that I haven’t figured out how to dispose of yet.
That conundrum is what prompted artist Michael Salter to come up with a creative reuse for the ubiquitous material, and the results are downright rad. He built this 22-foot-tall robot and its smaller companions in an attempt to make a statement about our consumerist culture.
From Komo News, via Treehugger:
“I have a sneaker collection,” he admits, “which is absurd, right? You don’t need more than one pair of sneakers. But at the same time, I’m conscious of the fact that this culture is about collecting stuff. The fact that we buy electronics at a time when they’re no longer really repairable … I mean, I know there’s a TV-repair shop somewhere, but I’ve never gone to a TV-repair shop in my life. You drag it to the curb and then you buy a new one. And the foam takes up more space in the box than the object does.”
Sure, styrofoam robots may not be the solution to styrofoam, but they sure are a fun way to make use of it and call attention to the problem!
Link [Komo News] + [Treehugger]
