In the Saharawi refugee camps, being sustainable by recycling is not a choice but one of the only opportunities when it comes to making, because the resources available in the Sahara desert are minimal. Plastic bottles, which lie around the camps as litter, are one of the few resources available.
I designed a technique to enable the Saharawis to use these bottles in a very simple way, in order to make pieces of jewellery. The technique uses only energy and equipment available in the camp: hot sand and simple hand tools (a knife, pigment and a drawing nail board).
The plastic bottle is first painted and then cut into thin strips. After that, any type of pattern can be made by positioning nails into the holes of a nail board: the plastic strip is placed around the nails and the whole board is submerged into hot sand. The plastic strip reacts to the heat by shrinking to fit the nail drawing, and keeps its shape when removed. The piece of jewelry then requires a few last steps and fittings to become finished. It is a very simple technique which, however, has the power to make the non-precious become precious.
This technique aims to be fully sustainable. It begins by enabling the Saharawis to recycle available resources with a low-tech process, and could grow to enable them to generate income from their work and so become less dependent on humanitarian aid.
Sponsor: Sandblast (an arts and human rights charity that works to empower the Saharawis, to tell their own story, promote their own culture and earn a living through the arts)