John AtkinBottle Caps and Felt Nails
punched into cardboard
841mm x 594mm

Union CapOur streets are littered with bottle caps.

Take a look on the ground and it won’t be long before you find a few scattered around.

Thousands are discarded every day in the UK, but what many people don’t realise is that they can be recycled, as they are made of steel (the plastic inside the cap burns off during the recycling process).

Trudi AtkinSea glass on paper
406mm x 305mm

When Will I Sea You AgainLike true love, glass endures.
In a landfill it will never break down, but it can be recycled over and over. Sea glass is broken pieces of white and coloured glass that have been washed and polished by the action of the waves for years. A bit, some might say, like the perfect relationship.

Joanne DouglasAssorted buttons & stuffed black
T-shirt sleeve onto black foamex
500mm x 400mm

Button It!Every time I buy a new piece of clothing I receive a couple of items attached to it which I never asked for and never use – spare buttons.

I detach them from the clothing and put them in a drawer; the number in the drawer now has reached mammoth proportions. When I thought of using these for artwork, I asked around and nearly everyone I know has a container somewhere with vast amounts of discarded buttons in them which they never look at and never appreciate.

I thought maybe it is time to value the extra buttons and put them to good use.

Pat GloverSilk-screen print onto discontinued
Admiralty chart No.0129 Yorkshire
Coast. Framed in white box frame
673mm x 605mm

East CoastingAdmiralty charts are the Ordnance Survey maps of the coast and the sea, used by seafarers and coastal dwellers alike, they are the most accurate guide to our coast and the sea beyond. But they do have a shelf-life, once updated in regard to new wrecks, changes in the coastline, pipelines and industrial developments. Older charts are ‘cancelled’ to be replaced by updated versions and become essentially worthless.

Looking at a discontinued Admiralty chart for the Yorkshire coast made me think about this coast in another way. Having surfed at many of the local beaches and reefs, it struck me how conventional place names become redundant and outdated in the same way that the charts do. Surfers have a tradition of naming the best surf breaks in obscure ways, this becomes almost an alternative language that only the initiated understand – rarely do the names of the best breaks reference the actual place where they can be found, and with good reason – surfers tend to jealously guard the best surf spots, so that only the true locals are in the know and know where to go.

Combining the cancelled Admiralty chart for the stretch of coastline that I know best, and the language of the breaks that I have surfed or know about through local legend, I have tried to create a unique print that represents a part of the world that many know well, but through a deliberately obscure language: using one font, but with gradually heavier weights to convey the surfing conditions (heavier font = more challenging waves) the breaks listed can be found along this coastline in the order they appear from North to South if you know when and where to look (and that’s all I’m saying).

Helen HartleyPrinted on recycled
plastic yogurt pots
420mm x 297mm

Plastic FantasticRubbish… Waste material: refuse or litter. Material that is considered unimportant or valueless. Each week the top three items of rubbish in my recycling bin are: aerosols, water bottles and cans of coke. This is my interpretation of recycling rubbish to make art.

Richard HurstComputer keys and
10mm white foamex
1000mm x 1000mm

ObsolescenceObsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object is no longer wanted even though it may still be in good working order. Take these keys, they have been harvested from old Apple Mac keyboards that once might have been someone’s prize possession, the latest in high tech elegance.

But Apple are clever – they are very quick to bring out the next generation of designer cool. No one wants these clunky keyboards now that you can have sleek aluminium and silicon versions that are as light as a feather. So their time has been and gone and although they still work they are cast aside. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before keyboards disappear all together, you could say the clock is ticking…

Elaine JacksonGreen card mounted onto foamex
to create the recycling symbol,
cutouts of trees from magazines
layered across the top
420mm x 297mm

OriginAfter placing the word recycling into Google, the first thing I saw was the recycling symbol. Now every time I place packaging into our green bin at home, the recycling symbol catches my eye. I have integrated the symbol into my artwork and through the recycling of card and paper I am taking the material back to its source.

Greg Kirk48 pages from various UK A-Z maps
200mm2 acrylic cubes (x3)
420mm x 297mm

Ushinawareta (Lost)The humble A–Z map – once a staple of every car glovebox across the country – has in recent times, rather ironically, lost its place in our lives to its modern and technologically advanced rival – sat nav. Its value has reduced to such an extent that I was able to buy over 30 of these detailed and intricate tomes of lines and contours for 99p at a car boot sale.

I personally still find maps very interesting and in many ways quite beautiful. The roads as they twist and turn along a page take on an organic nature and the quirky names of towns and villages always make me wonder how they came to be.

It was with this aesthetic quality in mind that I conceived to ‘up-cycle’ them into something even more beautiful and crafted. Kusudama (Japanese for medicine ball) is a form of origami that involves connecting multiple pieces of paper shapes to form one larger shape, usually spherical in form.

The ancient Japanese used to fill them with incense or potpourri and hang them from their ceilings. Today they are typically used as decorations or as gifts.

Angela Langlois240mm x 70mm

In the CanI have used squares cut out of coca-cola cans that in our house get thrown away nearly every day. I used the special cans created for the London Olympics as these featured both a Union Jack flag and the Olympic rings and made the art into the shape of the old-fashioned coca cola glass bottle that is renowned throughout the world.

Stuart MoreyScrap car parts
400mm x 700mm

Automotive Art: Stag’s HeadBelieve it or not, the most sustainable cars are not necessarily the ones with the best fuel efficiency or the ones produced from eco-friendly materials. They are, in fact, the most desirable and sought after cars. The motor car becomes most burdensome ecologically when it’s scrapped, so people’s genuine desire to keep a car on the road is better for the environment than many a new innovation. Unfortunately, car manufacturers these days seem more than ever to prey on our need to ‘keep up’ and embrace planned obsolescence. Whilst there have been huge advances in bodywork quality, engine efficiency and fuel systems, our need to have the latest and newest model is perhaps more dangerous to our environment than the impact of scrapping cars alone.

This piece pays homage to a car which was my personal favourite as a child and which was conceived during the heyday of British car manufacturing – the Triumph Stag. Built between 1970 and 1977, it now has iconic status and certainly falls into the category of a most sustainable car. Using recycled/discarded parts from inferior makes and models which didn’t stand the test of time, I have created a contemporary version of a stag’s head to symbolise this beautiful car.

Liam NewmarchJavaScript / HTML5
canvas digital print
210mm x 297mm

Garbage In, Growth OutIn Computer Science, ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ (GIGO) refers to the notion that computers unquestioningly process any data given to them. Nonsensical input will produce a nonsensical output. ‘Garbage in, Growth out’ plays on this. It is a JavaScript computer program that takes the barcodes of waste packaging and grows tree-like structures. Products with the same barcode will produce the same tree, but different barcodes will produce one of a billion possible trees.

Darren PascoeUsed aluminium printing plates
Used plastic (old exhibition panels on foamex or acrylic)
Used paper (old printed matter) 210mm x 297mm

All Ideas are RecycledThis explores the notion that there are no new ideas and that everything has been done before in one form or another. New ideas are merely versions of old ideas combined with new experiences and references and repackaged for a new market.

The art focuses around a quote by Audre Lorde (American writer/poet)

“There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt”

The quote has been designed and then screened using old inks that have been used on previous jobs, produced on to three of the most commonly recycled materials, creating a triptych.

Myles Pinfold24 carat gold (leaf)
620mm x 500mm

24 Carat Gold DustbinInspired by the likes of Duchamp, who took everyday industrial objects and presented them as art. And the artist who created the gold plant pot at the George Pompidou Centre in Paris. The dustbin is the receptor for all the detritus from our lives. It is probably not given a moment’s thought by most people, however it probably, more than anything else, has more connection with us than any other inanimate object – our hopes, our dreams, our failures, our mistakes, our empty yogurt pots…

Think about it, if we kept a record of everything we threw away, it could be bigger than our DNA.

Emma Rutherford180mm x 400mm

A Bright IdeaUp cycling the humble ring pull into something desirable, bespoke and sculptural.

Hayley WallToilet roll tubes and yellow
pencils on white melamine
coated particle board
600mm x 600mm x 120mm

One I Made EarlierToilet rolls. One of our most basic commodities used every day by probably every person in the developed world – without even giving them a second thought. 83 million rolls are produced in the world per day. Global toilet roll production consumes 27,000 trees daily. If they are lucky the cardboard tubes left over might find their way into our recycling bins, or in days gone by become weird and wonderful Blue Peter creations! I wanted to create something beautiful and organic, returning the humble toilet roll tube to something like its former glory.

Tom Walshaw500x500mm

Time Can DartI wanted to create an object that had a use. Not just something to look at. A clock will always have a place on someone’s wall somewhere and this clock is inspired by all the brewing industry brand research that I’m surrounded by at WPA. I wanted to incorporate a selection of cans that was both colourful and typographic but whilst this Art is Rubbish I hope in its new form, it is anything but…

Simon HenshawFound items, and souvenir
Gold medal

UbiquitousEverything to be found within 150m of the office (nearly!).

Patrick HolmesHand-painted lettering
onto old book pages
600mm x 850mm

Old & NeueA collision of past and present eras, with homage to typography.

Nicci McNeillPapier-mâché and recycled wire birds, overlaid with recycled magazines and wrappers

Home-Tweet-HomeWe should all take notice of less intellectual creatures than ourselves, such as birds, who automatically recycle materials (like shredded paper, tape and scrap pieces) to build their homes/nests. If they can do it, then why can’t we?

Andrew Molyneux

Recycled RayRephotographed X-rays, ultrasound and CT scans of family and friends and a few ‘bits’ borrowed from friendly medical professionals, printed on old OHP transparency film, mounted on acrylic from a discarded light table using surgical tape.

Chris McMahonSemi-skimmed milk bottle
tops and 10mm white foamex
1200mm x 1200mm

The Milk of Human KindnessMy artwork has been inspired by the pop art movement and uses my chosen medium of milk bottle tops. Since painstakingly collecting each one I have become fascinated by their different shades and vibrancy.

I have reused this plastic resource which is so easily discarded, into a clear, contemporary piece of art, arranging the various coloured milk bottle tops to reveal an image that reflects the source or origin of the product they once sealed.

Kerry KaneAstroturf and acrylic panel
1200mm x 420mm

Turfed OutTo throw out – rescued piece of
turf from a neighbour’s skip.

A Brooke Pinfold & Sue Kirch570mm x 420mm x 880mm

Chair of NailsI was inspired initially by Marcel Duchamp’s sculpture Fountain (urinal). Using utility items and transforming them into something potentially interesting and fun. Duchamp’s original piece was thrown out possibly because it was mistaken for rubbish.

Unlike other nail chair sculptures, I didn’t want to produce a uniform arrangement of nails, i like the organic look the nails produce and the way they appear to be emerging up from the chair as if to grab anyone silly enough to try and sit on it.

Pat GloverDigital print onto salvaged plastic pellets in solid bottomed re-cycled pine frame 388mm x 270mm

Low TideNurdles are the name given to the small plastic pellets that can (apparently) be found on virtually any beach in the world no matter how remote, a symptom of our man made world, and a symptom of out inability to protect the natural environment.

They are the remains of plastic products dumped or washed into the sea, and ground down over the years until all that remains are these tiny plastic pellets that to the naked eye resemble fish eggs, and as such present a major environmental hazard. Eaten by a variety of fish, birds and animals they are impossible to digest, causing blockages in the intestine that kill the animal, bird or fish that has eaten them.

I managed to collect and obtain an amount of nurdles sourced from local and national UK beaches, and decided to see if I could use them to create a canvas (a bed of man made shingle) to print a landscape of one of my favourite local beaches on the Yorkshire Coast. The resulting image is a reminder that the beauty of the places that mean the most to us hang in a balance between our desire to protect them for future generations and our inability to recycle effectively and protect the natural environment.

John AtkinScanned ephemera printed
onto cardboard
841mm x 594mm

To a ‘T’You can tell a lot about a person by the things they don’t throw away.

To create my self portrait, I raided an old tin box containing all sorts of printed ephemera, which I have been collecting for years.

I thought it would be interesting to display them as a range of t-shirts, which, in themselves, are transitory in nature (and also my favourite item of clothing).

Trudi AtkinPaper collage using vintage
wallpaper and comics from
the ’70s and ’80s
210mm x 297mm

Child of Her TimeAs a child of the 70s and early 80s, I have fond memories of poring over my Twinkle comics. Reading through them again felt like I was stepping back in time. It’s hard to look at the fantastic designs in 70s wallpaper without feeling nostalgic.

Joanne Douglas200 pennies and coloured
beads onto black foamex
600mm x 500mm

In for a Penny, In for a PoundBeing the financial person within the business, I felt it would be symbolic to have a connection to money, but who throws away cash? Then it dawned on me, we do it all the time. What value has the lowly penny these days? It is an irritant.

More often than not we either tell people to ‘keep the change’ or throw it in a receptacle never more to dwell on it. However get together enough of them they become worth something and the sky becomes the limit!

Pat GloverDigital print on recycled
neoprene, wrapped around
reclaimed pine frame
310mm x 310mm

Environmental StretchDespite its image, surfing is not always the ‘greener’ sport it likes to portray itself as. Producing fibreglass urfboards and neoprene for wetsuits are both particularly chemical heavy processes.

Neoprene or polychloroprene to give it its original name is created through the process of free-radical polymerization of 2-chlorobutadiene. The process tends to rely heavily on finite petroleum based products and is far from green.

Increasingly manufacturers are looking at utilising more environmentally friendly materials to create better quality and greener wetsuits: bamboo, limestone, merino wool and recycled polyester are some of the more ‘eco’ elements currently being utilised by the more forward thinking manufacturers.

I decided to create my self-portrait using neoprene from an old discarded wetsuit as a canvas and create the image from the huge variety of recycling symbols and icons that are currently in circulation, both as a comment on the need to use cleaner materials within the surfing industry and to utilise recycling to greater effect to promote sustainability.

Helen HartleyPrinted recycled plastic coffee cups
420mm x 297mm

Urban CoffeeBased on an urban art style of graphics, I have created a graphic stencil of myself and transferred it onto plastic made from recycled coffee cups.

It is a black and white representation to allude to the black and white colour palette of my favourite football team, Newcastle United.

Richard HurstDigital print to cartridge paper
330mm x 330mm

Work in ProgressWe are all a specification that is work in progress. Throughout my working life I have been involved in specifying colour for print and using Pantone numbers to make accurate choices. The pixelated image of my face breaks down into specific tones of colour of which can be specified as a pantone swatch.

Each colour is unique and individual but when combined in a specific order paint the bigger picture. I have not matched every colour to a pantone as after all we are all a specification that is work in progress.

Elaine JacksonSketch of face on to canvas, with
affixed colours of rainbow (colours cut
out from magazines and card)
297mm x 420mm

Preserving the Colours of our NatureThe colours that make up our environment and the colours that can symbolise our personality, represented through the natural occurrence of the rainbow.

Kerry KaneQR codes from magazines
printed on recycled paper
made from old £20 bank notes
210mm x 297mm

QR CodesMe in code – Scan the codes to reveal a few of the little things I like.

Greg KirkWhite and demerara sugar granules
obtained from office and cafe
leftovers onto recycled board
130mm x 180mm

Sugar DaddyI am well known in the office for having a lot of sugar in coffee (currently down to two spoonfuls, used to be three). I am aware that this isn’t particularly good for me and have tried many times to reduce the amount, use sweeteners or avoid coffee altogether. All in vain. It’s an addiction. I’ve calculated the sugar used to make my self-portrait would account for three days of my usual sugar intake.

Angela LangloisDigital print
300mm x 300mm

SnapshotUsing photographs of myself with friends and family throughout the past year, I have created the image of my face.

Chris McMahonScreenprint onto Train Tickets
390mm x 480mm

Passenger PortraitHaving become very well acquainted with the TransPennine Express over the first 6 months spent commuting between Manchester and Leeds, I accumulated a considerable amount of train tickets. I decided to recycle the evidence of my commute as a canvas to overlay a screen print to create a personal ‘passenger portrait’.

Stuart MoreyUsed engine oil on MDF
700mm x 900mm

No Oil PaintingMy portrait has been created using discarded engine oil on an off-cut of MDF. No materials have been bought in order to create this portrait. Everything is re-used.

Liam NewmarchRecycled corrugated cardboard
400mm x 400mm

Quirkily RecycledThe Quick Response (QR) code is a two-dimensional barcode that is used to encode data in a form that is easily readable for machines, but impossible for humans to decipher. Quirkily Recycled is a juxtaposition of the cold, mechanical QR code with the warm, tactile properties of cardboard, and of the stark black and white with texture and depth.

Darren PascoeScreenprint onto CD cases
254mm x 280mm

Music vs DesignMusic and design and vice versa have played such a huge, influential part in my life. From New Order and Peter Saville in the early ’80s through to The Designers Republic and their association with Warp records throughout the ’90s to Trevor Jackson who is both graphic designer and global DJ, the consistent intertwining of graphic artist and music influence continues to inspire me.

Myles Pinfold1000mm x 1000mm

1,641 MarblesI was clearing out some junk from our home and came across a bag of old and worn marbles that I had stored away under my bed and dragged around with me from home to home, since I was a child. What to do with all this ‘baggage’ that we gather around us? Usually it gathers dust in the attic, until we die, only to end up in the skip. Or we finally let go of any emotional threads and dispose of it ourselves. No, I want to turn these redundant and useless objects into something that has new meaning and relevance.

Hayley WallWine corks (natural
and synthetic) on MDF
800mm x 800mm x 46mm

Corker! Hidden depths #2Quercus suber, commonly called the cork oak. Over time the cork cambium layer of bark can develop considerable thickness and can be harvested every 9 to 12 years to produce cork. The harvesting of cork does not harm the tree, in fact, no trees are cut down during the harvesting process. Only the bark is extracted, and a new layer of cork regrows. A tree can be harvested about twelve times in its lifetime. It therefore seems a real shame to ever throw away this beautiful natural material.

Emma RutherfordLeftover paint from decorating,
applied to acrylic frame
420mm x 420mm

Ordered ChaosMy world. My chaos. In my order.

Tom WalshawWooden fence panel
180x150mm

Laughter LinesI’ve always liked things that aren’t quite what they seem, an object that, at first glance, isn’t obviously recognisable. For example, when you’re up close to a big screen and all you see is a red, green or blue bulb but at a distance, a bright, high definition picture. Or the apparent random dot pattern on a billboard poster when you see it at close range.

My self portrait is exactly that, strips of an old fence panel cut to a projected line halftone at such a low frequency that it only makes sense from afar.

Nicci McNeillOld cardboard base board with
papier-mâché build up of overlaid
shredded pieces of magazines and
newspapers for portrait and frame
600x500mm

White ‘trash’According to the recycling guide.org.uk: 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK; the average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers per year; and it takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper.

Thankfully, as a nation, we are now recycling an enormous amount of the paper we use – 8 million tonnes of waste paper was collected for recycling in 2011, so things are on the up. However, we need to be more imaginative about how we can use these throwaway everyday products. This portrait was made by using only recycled elements, newspapers, magazines, old preused cardboard as the base for the frame and even old flour to make the glue to hold it all together.