Plastic model kits are typically injection molded in a single shot, with all of the parts held together in a lattice, known as the runner. (Some call them sprue cards.) For the past six months, Japanese toymaker Bandai has been collecting their customers' stripped runners for a recycling event.
Said event, the Gunpla Recycling Project, was held this month in Shinjuku. Visitors were treated to the site of this 1:1-scale Gundam head, made from 3,000 runners:
Artist Ryotaro Muramatsu used runners to create this "Naked Flowers" installation:
Artist Yoichi Ochiai created "Plastic Hermitage," a freestanding tea room made from runners:
All told, Bandai collected roughly one ton of runners for eventual recycling--and spawned countless user-generated publicity shots on Twitter, under the hashtag #???? ("eco-plastic.")
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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At Bandai's Recycling Event, a 1:1-Scale Gundam Head Made from Discarded Plastic Runners
That's so cool! I save my sprues for kit-bashing pipes/structures/mechanical details in dioramas~