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Canberra designer Candice Addicoat displays some of the bowls and mats she has made from recycled polyethylene. Photo: Kerrie Brewer.

Canberra designer solving plastic problem

Canberra could become the first city in the world to design with plastic, designer Candice Addicoat believes. She has pioneered a world-first technique to turn polyethylene plastic into art and household items – but envisages a time when nearly everything is made from recycled PE plastic.

“As a whole community, from entertaining at home, construction, and creation at school, to planks and sheets for making cubbyhouses or doghouses, up to building materials, the whole community could use a lot more than we’re recycling,” Ms Addicoat says.

An exhibition at Floriade this month will encourage Canberra to set a world record and throw down the gauntlet to others.

Only 9 per cent of plastic waste (227,000 tonnes) is sent for recycling, and 84 per cent (2.1 million tonnes) is sent to landfill, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2020); while only 2 per cent of recycled plastic gets back into circulation, Ms Addicoat notes.

“Polyethylene is the world’s biggest plastic problem on the planet purely by volume,” she explains.

The most made plastic, it comprised 32 per cent of plastic waste in 2020 – and, with the fastest growing production rate (2.7 per cent), it is expected to reach half of all plastics within the next decade.

Unstopped, that plastic is bad news for the environment – but Ms Addicoat believes this “dire environmental nuisance” can be made into “beautiful, purposeful or practical items”.

Last year, Ms Addicoat realised that polyethylene products like plastic lids, bottles, and bags were made from the same plastic as melted beads, a children’s craft toy.

You or I might chuck that maroon shampoo bottle in the recycling; Ms Addicoat cuts it up, melts it in her sandwich press … and five minutes later, voilà! An A4 craft sheet.

That craft sheet might become a lamp, a platter or dipping bowl in a 17-piece entertaining set, a cake platter, or a cameo brooch.

Tomato sauce bottles, mustard bottles, gold milk lids, and children’s plastic beads become a placemat with a gecko design – a translucent gecko: hold it up to a light, and it glows with new colours.

“It was, accidentally, a world first,” she said. “I looked at what other people were doing with their waste polyethylene. There are a few wobbly bowls out there; that’s about it other than the commercial recycled plastic – which is very expensive equipment, not everyday stuff.

“As a designer, it’s the most interesting, versatile, and vibrant material I’ve ever worked with. It’s so quick, so easy, so safe, so almost organic in the way things can look.”

Polyethylene is not toxic, and has been used in 3D printers, as well as by children, for decades, Ms Addicoat explains.

Polyethylene binds well with other unrecycled material: glass or metal (to make cake stands); paper (an old National Geographic makes a five-piece Incan set); or waste fabric (to make waterproof handbags, shoes, outdoor furniture coverings, or awnings).

Her exhibition at Floriade, Plasticus Botanica (the plastic garden), will showcase bigger artworks: the large, backlit native botanicals she has made with the Strong Aboriginal Women’s Group: waratah lamps or illuminated wattle bushes, for instance.

She hopes visitors will go home realising what they can do with plastic and set a brand-new record for using recycled polyethylene.

Part of the world record initiative is to get a mini plastic shredder for each school and a bank of shredders at community centres to make shredded plastic

Woodwork teachers could become polywork teachers, working with a 100 per cent recyclable material, while children could collect plastics in their favourite colours, swap them at school, and make their own lolly dishes, cupcake holders, and party hats at birthdays.

A bigger shredder can make two tonnes of plastic a day. The same facility could make planks and sheets of plastic that could be building material for city renewal projects, school desktops, bus shelters, benches, or tactile paving for blind people at traffic stops.

Since PE plastic takes up the exact texture of other materials (stone, granite, glass, or metal), a non-slip sample could become garden pavers, garden paths, or a retaining wall, and be embedded with solar-powered LEDs to make a glowing feature at night-time.

“We’ve got so much stuff lying around,” Ms Addicoat says. “It’s almost going back to the beginning when there were trees, rocks, clay, and sand lying around, and we just picked them up and created. … I feel it’s going to be an age of innovation and creation.”

For more information, visit Plastic Static, a platform to share ideas, pictures, techniques, and facts about used PE plastic. The website is part of the PlastiSCENE program, a recycled plastic initiative of Ms Addicoat’s community improvement and engagement charity, SCENE.

SCENE refurbishes community organisations, housing estates, and care facilities, turning socalled junk into art and furniture. Ms Addicoat is putting free videos of her junk décor workshops online for the community to access. They are suitable for all ages and abilities, from beginners, children, people with special needs, and the aged to DIY enthusiasts, artists, and designers.

Cooperation and collaboration the key to Australian jobs and skills

On Friday 26 August, my ACT federal government colleagues and I held the ACT Jobs and Skills Forum at Parliament House. The Forum was in the lead-up to the National Jobs and Skills Summit to ensure that as many stakeholders’ views were heard as possible to help inform the National Summit.

The Forum brought together business groups, unions, higher education representatives, civil society, and governments to address shared economic challenges and opportunities. As the Forum proved, Canberra has a wealth of experience and knowledge in the jobs and skills space to help inform government.

The Forum focused on a range of issues including sustainable productivity, participation, skills and training, migration, boosting job security, and lifting wages, among others. It was encouraging to see the range of delegates getting together to work constructively on these challenges and opportunities facing the ACT labour market and economy.

A notable consensus was the benefits immigration can bring to the ACT economy but that it was essential that such employees are treated fairly and free from discrimination. It was also positive that both employer groups and unions agreed that we need to upskill and support apprentices in emerging clean energy sectors, such as electricians to work in electrification. Ensuring support for apprentices is vital to building our skills base, and an opportunity to encourage placements for mature age Canberrans seeking to reskill into emerging industries.

The ACT Jobs and Skills Forum was one of more than a hundred forums and round tables held around the country. This is an extraordinary effort from everyone who participated, and it demonstrated the genuine desire across Australia to come together and work collaboratively for the common good. It is a shame that the Federal Liberal Party refused to attend in any capacity, seemingly for miscalculated politics of division rather than for the national interest.

The National Jobs and Skills Summit was a success. It set a clear direction for the work we can do to build a stronger economy with 36 initiatives for immediate action to benefit all Australians.

Skills Ministers across the country collaborated to provide funding for 180,000 fee-free TAFE places in 2023 for highest priority skills needs, such as aged care. One thousand digital apprenticeships were confirmed for the Australian Public Service, and improved jobs and training pathways for women, First Nations people, regional Australians, and culturally and linguistically diverse people were announced.

To help address workforce shortages, Aged Pensioners seeking to work can earn an additional $4,000 over this financial year without impacting their pension. Additionally, an increase in the permanent Migration Program ceiling will be lifted to 195,000, and visas will be extended for international students to strengthen the pipeline of skilled labour.

What we achieved at the Summit is just the beginning. There is still further work to do, and we will continue down the path of cooperation and collaboration so that all Australians benefit from a strong economy.

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