VALUABLE PLASTIC

Plastic is valuable: grind, press, process, extrude, wind up, draw, 3D print: this is how you can unveil the secrets of plastic and learn how to recycle consciously.

A new interactive exhibit, “Valuable Plastic”, is now available at Explora to collect, identify, reuse, recycle and make new objects from plastic packaging, made in collaboration with COREPLA, National Consortium for the Collection and Recycling of Plastic packages.

The “Valuable Plastic” exhibit allows children and adults to learn about plastic: from understanding the differences between plastic and plastic packaging, to turning a waste into a new product. The equipment installed in the museum area simulates a real plastic recycling plant. In the exhibit, children can grind the valuable waste (caps and bottles), reduce and press chips to create new objects or extrude them into filaments to be used for 3D printing, using an App that generates customisable gadgets by turning a 2D drawing into a 3D drawing.

The exhibit focuses the attention on some materials used for packaging: PET (bottles), HDPE (containers and caps) and other plastics, combining practice with the theory on how to identify the different types of plastics and how to recover them.

The ever-growing use of plastic packaging is a contemporary phenomenon: only by recovering and reusing plastics we can stimulate a circular economy and help protect our Planet.

Children, as key players of the future, can learn how much important plastic recovery is by becoming conscious consumers.

The exhibit is based on the idea of Precious Plastic (https://preciousplastic.com/en/).

Realized with the support of Corepla