Nobody wants to see rubbish littering the magical Sahara desert, unless of course it belongs to WE MAKE CARPETS. The Dutch collective has been arranging ordinary household objects into dazzling carpets for a few years now, but their most recent installation commissioned by the Taragalte Festival in southern Morocco is among their finest.
Made entirely out of dozens of plastic bottles arranged in surprising patterns, the Bottle carpet encourages spectators to look at waste with a whole new set of eyes.
This year’s Taragalte Festival in M’Hamid was held in early November and honored the Women of the Sahara.
A wonderful initiative designed to promote cross-cultural exchange, sustainable tourism development and environmental stewardship, the festival invited WE MAKE CARPETS to put together an iconic recycled art piece that would celebrate these worthy aims.
Although some Moroccans are beginning to understand the importance of proper waste management, the lack of recycling infrastructure and proper education has left the North African country in the dust of the developing world.
Plastic bottles clog water ways and bags travel with the wind, blighting the magnificent landscape, leaching harmful toxins into the ground and endangering wildlife.
Turning plastic trash into a treasure that looks like a carpet – which have always played an important role among the nomadic people of the desert – helps to convey the notion that all materials are both precious and valuable.
Take a look at WE MAKE CARPETS’s website to see some of their other work. To date, they have built different sized carpets out of pasta, candybars, and even nuts and bolts.
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
As the Environmental Protection Specialist for Yellowstone National Park, I launched a program that transforms recycled plastics collected in the park into carpet backing that is now used by many of the major carpet manufacturers in the United States. The manufacturing process also incorporates soybeans which has resulted in supporting American farmers. Please let me know if you would like to receive more details.
Apparently, they’ll do anything, but never recycle them.