A group of Year 5 students from Toukley Public School has turned a lesson on plastic pollution into a piece of sustainable art in Gurtle, the Garbage Turtle.
Inspired by their reading of Neal Layton’s, A Planet Full of Plastic, students in class 5D took to the school grounds to observe their peers’ own habits when it came to plastic waste and were dismayed with the amount of plastic litter that they discovered.
Perturbed but galavanised, as a class 5D began collecting plastic waste from around the playground with the goal of creating a piece of public art to remind the school community about the environmental impact of plastic, and thus Gurtle was born.
Made from mesh wire and plastic waste, the sculptural green sea turtle now serves as a reminder of the devastating impact of plastic pollution on marine life and to inspire students to reduce their usage of plastic.
Dilon Luke