Reducing Waste Through Creative Reuse

We’re committed to reducing waste across all museum operations, finding innovative ways to reuse and repurpose materials from exhibitions and construction projects, whenever possible.

Exhibition Materials Reuse

Following our recent Pirates exhibition, we partnered with St Austell-based Parc Signs for the deinstallation of the displays. One creative outcome was connecting with Bodmin Community College student Joshua Ellicott, who transformed the Pirates exhibition canvas banners into a custom jacket for an innovative college project.

Joshua, who was nominated for the DofE Innovator of the Year Award, discovered his passion for textiles during his GCSEs. He shared his experience working with our materials:

“I made my first garment in May last year, having no real experience up to that point apart from taking textiles GCSE. I put a great deal of thought into my garments to make them all as functional as possible.”

Josh created the jacket as a statement piece demonstrating recycled materials’ potential: “Using these valuable materials makes you more aware of the sheer amount of waste created when making a garment.”

The project was documented by fellow student Oscar Wadham.