What to do with leftovers?
While making my most recent piece I found I had a lot of offcuts, thanks to the awkward non-tessellating shape of the pattern pieces. After researching the recycling options for these I found that PVC was "not widely recyclable".
Not wanting these pieces to end up in landfill, I started looking at other ways I could potentially use them. They are very tactile and there is something pleasing about the curves they make when they bend, with their edges appearing luminous. I took some beads from an old broken necklace and started bending the PVC around, holding it in place with fishing line.
I think they'd really work as necklaces, or complimentary accessories to the piece itself. I had so many though, arguably too many to work with. It occurred to me that they could be of use to other creatives, but I had no knowledge of a means to share them. I'm a member of several sharing sites, such as Freecycle, but this kind of thing seemed a little too niche to be shared there.
I decided instead to set up my own sharing site on Facebook, aimed at people who make. I felt it needed to be local to me, as with other sharing sites, so that those who wanted to give something away didn't have to deal with postage costs. I called it Leeds Zero Waste Makers, and in just a couple of weeks had 60 members.
In this group, people are already listing the things they don't need (mostly fabric remnants) and these are being claimed by other members of the group.
Ideally, there wouldn't be any leftovers to try and find homes for. But when prototyping something for the first time there is bound to be waste, and I think groups like this could be a good alternative to sending things to landfill.
I'm also quite into the idea of complimentary accessories, after having played about with some offcuts myself. I think this is something I'd like to incorporate in future makes.
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