Shrewsbury-based visual artist Sara Mai is giving an illustrated talk about plastic waste on Tuesday 16th March at a virtual event hosted by the Shrewsbury Green Party.

The event – called From Waste to Resource: A Short, Trashy Talk – will see the artist talk about her work creating art and design from waste stream materials, and about how we can re-evaluate everyday waste as a resource for meeting local need.

Says Sara Mai: “As an artist, I have been working hard over the years to encourage more people to reuse their waste for practical purposes. In my talk I will illustrate local examples of ‘upcycling’ as well as examples of Circular Economy as adopted by corporations globally. I will also take a brief look at plastics, my current art medium.”

Sara has been working with plastic bottle tops creating sustainable art, design and educational shows for the last ten years. Her installation “No To More Refined Crude Oil Spread Across Our Land” is currently on display at the Shrewsbury Environment Centre.

In the summer she usually attends festivals with Clean Stream, who supply and operate a drinking water source and process water supply, as well as offering a handwashing facility. Clean Stream also provide segregated waste collection, as a means of running a resource centre for clean materials required on site.

Councillor Julian Dean, who is hosting the talk, says: “I am thrilled to have Sara come and talk to us. Her visual art is fantastic and makes us reconsider our relationship with waste, especially plastic waste. If we want to move to a more sustainable economy, we need to urgently tackle the issue of waste and, in particular, the growing plastics crisis. I know that Sara’s ‘trashy’ talk will be anything but.”

The talk is open to the public with donations being accepted for the Shrewsbury Green Party.