What and where are repurposed materials from?

The materials for this sculpture came from a combination of campus partners, student donations, and trusted sources chosen carefully for both safety and sustainability.

• Cardboard boxes, Paper bags – Provided by WakerSpace and Alan Winkler (Facilities & Campus Services), supplemented by clean student donations

• Newspaper, Magazines, Bottle caps – Supplied by WakerSpace from their existing stock

• Magazines – Donated by students and supplemented by WakerSpace

• Hot glue & tools – Provided by WakerSpace

Due to sanitary and safety considerations for a public indoor installation, not every material could come directly from recycling bins. However, the spirit of the project remains the same: these are the same types of materials students use and discard every day. The cardboard, plastic, and paper that make up this turtle mirror what fills campus trash and recycling bins daily.

Our goal was never to use "dirty" waste, it was to show that the materials themselves, even when clean and safe to handle, are the very same ones that become pollution when not properly managed. The turtle is a symbol, not a trash can.

How long did it take to build?

With only 10 sessions, we were able to complete this sculpture. Spanning from March 19-April 10

What sparked this idea?

Honestly? We just started paying attention to how much cardboard was showing up in campus recycling bins.

Walk past any dorm mailroom on a weekday and you'll see it, stack after stack of flattened boxes. Amazon, Target, Shein. Every single one opened, emptied, and tossed within minutes of arrival. We realized we were looking at a pattern, not a one-off.

We also knew the stats. Recycling is better than landfill, but it's not a closed loop. Those boxes and plastic mailers still require energy to process, and plenty still end up where they shouldn't. So we asked ourselves: what if we didn't send this stuff away at all? What if we built something with it right here?

That's it. No grand revelation. Just a question: can we take what people are already throwing out and make people stop and look at it?

The turtle is our attempt at an answer.

Why a sea turtle?

Sea turtles are one of the most visible victims of plastic pollution in our oceans.

They mistake plastics for jellyfish (their favorite food). They get entangled in packaging materials. They ingest microplastics that accumulate in their bodies. For decades, sea turtles have been the face of the ocean plastic crisis and for good reason. Their struggle makes the problem impossible to ignore.

By building a sea turtle out of campus waste, we wanted to make that connection direct and undeniable: The cardboard box from your latest delivery. The plastic bottle you finished at lunch. The newspaper you recycled. These materials don't disappear. They can end up in waterways, in oceans, inside animals like this one.

The turtle is a messenger. It carries the weight of that message on its shell, literally made from what we throw away.