Creative solutions

If creating art is a process of bringing to life things that others cannot imagine, then you'll find no better example than Weapons of Sound. 

This 10-piece ensemble makes music from the things you'd find in the garbage – and it's the music you may have heard playing in our Trash or Treasure videos and podcasts. 

The project started back in 1993 after an evidently inspirational youth-club workshop in Plymouth, UK – and the band members explain how they've made tunes from trash ever since. 

"We have gas pipes which are cut to various lengths, to pentatonic scale," explains frontwoman Hannah. "We hit them on the end and they kind of give us the tune of our songs."

Weapons of Sound's musicians use everything including the kitchen sink – literally. "If you flip it upside down and bend down the two draining boards at either side," explains Hannah's colleague Kris, "you get this unique natural-sounding drum, which kind of emulates a snare drum on a drum kit."

If the idea sounds insane, the music sounds infectious – driving rhythms which transcend the instruments' origin and transport the audience into joyous dancing. "When it's all set up and we start our performance," smiles Kris, "the transition of the audience from confusion to amazement that this kind of music and tonality is coming out of, frankly, recycled junk is a lovely moment."

And it's worked: the band has been busy for nearly 20 years. "We've played lots of different places," says Hannah, "from community fares and fêtes, to environmental launches, to Buckingham Palace to opening the Commonwealth Games."

There is also a deeper message which is seldom lost on their audience, says Hannah, combining recycling with creativity. "Why junk? The possibilities literally are endless," she says. "Everything's widely available, anybody can do it. Pick something up, reuse it, rethink about something for a different kind of purpose. Make music, be in a band – get involved."

Innovative reuse is partly about coming up with brilliant solutions, but it's also about combating chronic problems. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused much death and disruption, but it has also created a trash catastrophe as humanity discards PPE, such as face masks, in terrifying numbers. 

It's estimated that every minute, about three million face masks are discarded globally. That adds up to a mind-blowing 129 billion face masks every month – and it's not just the amount but also the chemical pollutants and nano-plastics which could leach into the environment.  

But here comes that leap of logic again. We've all seen discarded face masks on the pavement or road, but how many of us have imagined we could use one to create the other? For investigating that idea, it's hats off to Mohammad Saberian of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

For Saberian, it's a perfectly logical connection. "The face masks are made of propylene plastics," he says, and "these sort of plastics have good engineering properties which can provide flexibility to the road structure."

But how does it get from mask to roadway? Well, don't imagine a great highway of translucent blue material edged with white elastic – it becomes a crucial raw material instead.

"We cut the face mask to small fibres and then we add them to the building rubble," explains Saberian, "so the pavement is made from waste and all recycled materials."

Having proven the concept, Saberian and his colleagues are looking for industrial partners and governments to collaborate with so that they can produce a prototype. To complete the 'COVID-to-causeway' process, they're also examining how discarded gloves and gowns might be recycled to make roads or concrete. 

Despite the seemingly insurmountable waste mountain ahead, Saberian remains hopeful – acknowledging the assistance of the authorities. "I'm very optimistic. Fortunately, here in Australia – specifically in Melbourne and Sydney – the government is very supportive of the research and recycling industries and I believe we can reduce the amount of waste materials generated around the world."

As the waste problem is global, so the solutions are too – along with the determination to make the change, throughout society. And in the Jordanian desert, Syrian refugees have made an incredible difference to the way they process their waste. 

"The Za'atari refugee camp was created in 2012 to host the increasing number of Syrian refugees crossing the border, "explains Oxfam's Jean-Patrick Perrin. "It's now one of the biggest in the world, spreading over five square kilometers and hosts around 77,000 refugees."

As the camps grew, waste increased. Oxfam helped set up a system offering employment to refugees who wanted to earn money by collecting, sorting and recycling waste. Between 2017 and March 2020, they picked up four million kilograms of recyclable materials – keeping 20 percent of all the trash from Za'atari out of landfill. 

"Everything is compressed, plastics shredded, metals compressed then sold to the highest bidder outside the camp – they can be reused in any sort of manufacturing process," says Perrin, who can't praise the refugees enough.

"We employ 6,000 refugees on a rotation basis," he reveals. "They are the backbone of this entire project, we couldn't achieve success without them. That's the most important part of this."

The scheme has been so effective, the team has set up a recycling center serving nearby communities. "We also collect materials in the local municipalities," says Perrin, "and in this center, we employ both Jordanians living in the nearby communities and Syrian refugees as well."

Perrin says the scheme shows how we can all think more about recycling. "We conducted a survey and discovered that about 80 percent of households in the camp were sorting their own waste – and that's before the people who pushed trolleys through the camp to collect materials. 

"We're honestly proud of this because it means that people took that time and changed their behavior towards how they manage their own waste. At the same time, this project is one of the main employers for Syrian refugees, and economic opportunities for Syrian refugees in that region are often very limited. We're hoping to do more."