Call for garbage treasures reaches over 100 million

When taxi passengers were asked to ‘Play with Garbage’ for the sake of the environment this May, it was with the intent for people to discover the principles of “reduce, reuse and recycle” through Eco-Art’s contest to make garbage into art.

Eco-Art China organized by Touchmedia and supported by the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau (SEPB), has reached 101,437,601 passengers in 12 weeks.

Neil Ducray, Touchmedia’s managing director, and deputy party secretary, Jiang Nan from SEPB were present to announce the first prize work named “Eco-Violin” made of waste paper, plastic pipes and cans made by Monica Liaw from New Zealand. Her piece received the highest votes out of the 198,356 public votes cast in two weeks.

Fung Yee Ngai from Hong Kong and Weslee Tsuei from Taiwan both collected second prize honors for their entries which used plastic bottles and waste paper. “Castle in the sky”, the other second prize work, made of an old wood frame, rope, pulp filler and pigment, was turned from lifeless garbage into lively art by Wangjun from Shanghai.

Another Shanghai participant Yang Yan claimed the third prize spot with “Boys Love Art” pieced together from buttons, crayons, bottle caps, CDs, sticks, straw, grain, wipes, rice and foam. The two other third prize winners were Huangsiwei from Guangzhou and Duyi from Shanghai.