Amy Stocklein
Ida Sobotik (right) shows Zion (left) and Megan how to turn recycled plastic into a chicken figure at Troy Kids’ Garden.
The late August afternoon sun is slanting through the trees of Troy Kids’ Garden as Ida Sobotik explains the origin of her latest project, Precious Plastic Madison. “It started with a conversation last year with an 8-year-old boy under that mulberry tree,” says Sobotik, manager of the kids’ garden at Troy Gardens on Madison’s north side. “We watched a piece of plastic roll like tumbleweed over the broccoli plants and settle under a leaf. ‘Plastic is so ugly, it never disappears,’ he said. In my mind I thought, I wish I had something concrete I could do about it. Why are we not addressing plastic pollution?”
Sobotik and other staff provide gardening, arts, nutrition and environmental education to more than 1,000 children annually through summer and school programs. To start raising awareness about plastic pollution — “plastic is part of these children’s daily lives,” she says — Sobotik received a grant from Dane County Arts and partnered with Community GroundWorks, the nonprofit that oversees Troy, and hackerspace Sector 67 to launch a branch of Precious Plastic in Madison.
Started in the Netherlands in 2013 by Dave Hakkens, Precious Plastic fights plastic pollution. With branches all over the world, the group provides free resources to people who want to establish recycling centers where plastic waste can be turned into art or useful items including baskets, tiles and keychains.
Sobotik and her husband, engineer Matias Parodi, designed and built a machine at Sector 67 using a Precious Plastic blueprint. The injection molder they built turns #2 HDPE plastic into colorful chicken-shaped figures that can be used as necklaces, keychains, pins or magnets.
“This is our beta project,” Sobotik says. “We have one mold — a chicken — for now.” The chicken mold, designed by local industrial designer Adrian Pereyra, was chosen to pay homage to the beloved flock that resides in a coop near the kids’ garden. Pereyra has also developed plans to convert used plastic into seed flats and flower pots, which could be used by the farmers at Troy Farm — the organic farm that is also part of the Troy development.
On this Thursday afternoon, when Troy Farm sells vegetables and wood-fired pizza from its stand near the kids’ garden, a group of children has gathered around Sobotik and Parodi at the recycling center. As the children help cut up the plastic that they have brought with them, Sobotik talks to them about the environment.
“You guys are giving this plastic jug a second life,” she says. As the children choose plastic pieces — some colored and some clear — for their molds, they line up at the machine that will melt the plastic. Sobotik says the machine uses #2 HDPE plastic — think milk jugs, shampoo bottles and laundry detergent containers — “because it’s considered to be the most ‘clean’ plastic and when it melts, the toxins aren’t as dangerous.”
A 7-year old named Abigail shows off her creation, a chicken of varying shades of blue. “I love this chicken,” Parodi says. “This is my favorite one so far.”
Parodi is in the process of designing and building another machine that will use a bicycle to shred the plastic instead of having to cut it by hand. That machine will have tempered glass on one side so the kids can watch the plastic being shredded. “Destroying stuff is very fun,” Parodi observes.
For now, the Precious Plastic machine seems to be doing its job. Oak, 7, stands in line waiting for his chicken. “Recycling is good for the environment,” he says, “because plastic hurts animals.”
8 million tons: Plastic that ends up in the oceans every year.
More than 1 million: Marine animals killed by plastic every year.
448 million tons: Plastic produced in 2015.
161 million tons: Plastics in packaging that year.
Big Bertha: Name of the injection mold machine at Troy Kids’ Garden. “It’s really heavy,” says Sobotik.
2 tablespoons: Plastic needed to create one chicken.
2050: Year that scientists predict there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the ocean.
