Asking people to think about waste is sometimes difficult – you might even say it can be a waste of time. People do not like to be preached at. So how on earth do you make a European Union Directive interesting enough to grab people’s attention? Through art? Well, it’s worth a shot! A mysterious seven meter creature was born.
What is he made of? Firstly, large household appliances, such as washing machines and television sets make up a large part of his structure. Then there are smaller objects, such as toaster, irons, and other electrical tools. There is lighting equipment and automatic dispensers, IT and telecoms equipment and toys and leisure items, all making up this latter-day Frankenstein’s monster of Brobdingnagian proportions. This guy is big! Waste is no longer out of sight, out of mind. The hope is that his birth will make people think about their behavior when it comes to disposing of the electrical equipment they no longer want.
At the risk of sounding like a cosmetic ad, here’s the science (or at least the boring bit – the reason why WEEE man was created in the first instance. WEEE actually stands for the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) which became European Law way back in 2003. Its aim was to set targets for the collection, recovery and (mais bien sur!) the recycling of any and all types of electrical equipment.
So, the WEEE man was considered a good way to draw attention to this. After all, out of all the European Union Member States only little Cyprus managed to meet the deadline to place this Directive in to their own national law. The UK (and its usual tagalong play mate Malta) were the only two member states not to transpose a framework of the regulations at the very least in to their national law. Step forward the Royal Society of Arts with a reminder of the governmental responsibilities – and we are not talking a post-it note on the PC monitor here, either!
Once the point had been made, at the South Bank in the heart of London, WEEE man now finds a home at the marvelous Eden Project in Cornwall. There he remains (but will be on tour soon), a colossal reminder of the waste that we produce and a nudge to our consciences that we must do something about it. How he has managed to encourage discussion around our throw-away consumer society could never properly be quantified. However, something this big gets noticed and hopefully this WEEE man has made people think about their choices when it comes to the disposal and recycling of our waste.