Three chairs made of junk food wrappers and a center table designed with an old car tire. A cargo bike made of junk bicycle parts and plastic waste. Chairs made from waste collected during a river cleanup in Morocco.
These were some of amazing pieces showcased in the recent Junk Not exhibit at SM Aura Premier, featuring interior designer Wilhelmina Garcia’s creative ways of transforming waste materials into functional/useful items.
Garcia is the founder of Junk Not, an interior design company that specializes in finding creative ways to transform everyday trash and other indigenous materials into functional items.
The company engages a community of women in Barangay Alas-as in San Nicolas, Batangas to be responsible stewards of the environment by training them to segregate and clean household wastes. These plastic wastes are then turned into ropes that are woven into wooden/metal frames to create beautiful furniture or table accents.
Garcia is a graduate of Interior Design at St. Scholastica’s College, Manila. She is a licensed interior designer and a member of Philippine Institute of Interior Design since 2006. She attended social entrepreneurship at Youth Encounter Sustainability held in Armenia, Colombia.
In 2007, she won the grand prize in interior design category “The Environment Shapes You” of the Metrobank Arts and Design Excellence. She is an advocate of the environment and continues to create art pieces as her means to lessen wastes in communities. Her beautiful furniture pieces and accessories have been exhibited in different events in the Philippines and abroad including Paris, Belgium, and Germany.
This exhibition is a call for action, an advocacy to push everyone to be more creative and responsible with their waste management. With this, SM Aura Premier and Junk Not encourage everyone to join this movement, give back to Mother Nature, and be a responsible consumer by starting proper waste segregation at home.
The event was part of SM Aura Premier’s Lush Initiative, a campaign promoting green programs in the mall.
