Precious Plastic Herzeele

Virtually Maker Faire 2020

May 22nd-23rd

Precious Plastic Herzeele is a collaborative project set up in the North of France, with the intention to create a workshop, open and accessible to all including those living in the local area and those migrating through the region. This workshop hopes to help them come together around the common goal of environmental protection.

This project consists of developing a workshop for the recycling of plastics in the village of Herzeele (20 minutes from Dunkirk), on a farm managed by Maison Sésame. Maison Sésame is an organisation that houses homeless people, including exiles, for periods of time ranging from a few days to a few months.

For plastic recycling, we will build and use Precious Plastic machines, with the designs and instructions that are freely accessible online.
These machines will allow us to recycle the plastic waste collected in informal living spaces, where many exiles live, near Calais and Grande-Synthe. Waste collections are already being completed by associations working on the ground, with the installation of bins and explanatory posters. Recyclable materials are also envisioned to come from local associations, such as Maison Sesame, local inhabitants of Herzeele and the surrounding areas.

Precious Plastic, an idea developed in the Netherlands, has become a vibrant community of projects around the world. This open community provides us with an extensive amount of resources, instructions, plans, advice and exchanges, for the construction of the machines and for the creation of a social and commercial model. There are four main machines, which will be used to shred, melt and reform the plastic waste into new useful objects

In the workshop, we will organize activities that people can participate in, including those staying at Maison Sesame and the residents of Herzeele. The goal is that these workshops are intellectually stimulating, that they can open doors and allow participants to gain new skills (such as designing, programming and machine maintenance). These can help broaden people’s knowledge, interests, curiosities and potential future prospects. These workshops can act as a pastime, an activity that structures daily life or something that allows meetings and discussions around migration or the environment.