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Creative Upcycling of Plastic Waste Materials as An Innovative Artistic Technique for Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Aesthetics and Entrepreneurial Avenues in The Kokrobite and Bortianor Communities in Accra
Summary
A study of a Ghanaian contemporary artist who uses plastic waste as an artistic medium found that creative upcycling opens entrepreneurial opportunities while engaging community members in plastic waste collection and awareness activities. The work demonstrates how artists can serve as environmental educators and economic enablers by transforming waste materials into value-added products.
Plastic waste continues to be an environmental nuisance globally. In the case of Ghana, where only 5% of plastic waste is recycled, there is an urgent need for organizations and individuals to develop innovative strategies in creatively re-using plastic waste materials, and transforming them into valuable products. This exploratory qualitative study that utilizes a creative and arts-based research approach discusses the innovative artistic technique employed by one of the burgeoning contemporary Ghanaian artists, Samuel Prophask Asamoah who uses plastic waste materials that have been an age-long environmental challenge in the Kokrobite and Bortianor communities in Accra where he resides. The study reveals that the creative upcycling undertaken by Asamoah has opened another entrepreneurial opportunity and enriched his art practice. Interestingly, Asamoah has used his new innovative artistic technique to offer some of the local community members job avenues in the collection, cleaning, and cutting of plastic waste materials for his artistic productions. Through tactful exhibitions of his plastic waste innovative projects, Asamoah engages important stakeholders such as the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, private and public schools in the vicinity, fisher-folks, market women, and Nature Conservation and Environmental sustainability NGOs to partake in the discourses on ways of arresting the canker of plastic pollution. An immersive community sensitization exhibition that attracted a large audience, devoid of binary distinctions, was organized at the Kokrobite plastic deposit center. An exhibition organized in a panoramic style provided egalitarian attention amongst the exhibits and a platform for diverse conversations that inspired new ideas from the audience. The study asserts that when artists and other individuals take up creative upcycling projects using plastic waste materials, it will offer another layer of employment for them and many others in their communities while protecting the environment and its rich biodiversity.