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The Bingham High Classroom Turned Landfill
Description
Why would a classroom at Bingham High School suddenly look more like a landfill? It is all for a good cause as the Bingham High School musical goes green. We’ll hear from students involved in this unique production of Children of Eden where all the costumes are made of recycled plastic and other recycled materials.
Children of Eden runs November 22, 23, 24 and 25 at 7 p.m. at Bingham High School with a matinee at 2 p.m. on November 23.
Audio Transcription
(00:15):
Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent, Anthony Godfrey. Today, we take you where very few have gone before. A Bingham High School classroom turned landfill, filled with hundreds of plastic, water bottles, milk jugs, and food containers, piled high almost to the ceiling. It's all for a good cause as theater students in the upcoming musical, Children of Eden, are involved in a real life recycling lesson. All of the costumes for the musical are being made out of recycled and reused plastics. Here's what I discovered on a recent visit to Liz Smith's classroom. Some intelligent and talented theater students who care deeply about planet earth guys. Yes, I am an hour later than I wanted to be. So what do you guys have cooking here? A whole lot of plastic. Wow. Look at that around, Holy cow.
Teacher:
I'm Liz Smith. I'm one of the theater teachers here at Bingham and the director and choreographer of Children of Eden. We are using all of the plastics to create the animals that are needed for the musical. There are lines in the musical that talk about how we, as humans, have kind of destroyed the world for the animals. And now we're going to create our animals out of the plastics that the cast members have been collecting around the school. And so right now I just have a landfill, but we're going to turn it all into something.
Superintendent:
Yes. A classroom fill, if you will.
Teacher:
It's pretty crazy. I've got empty yogurt cups, sour cream bins and a mountain of it.
Superintendent:
And so it looks like you have plans for this. Hopefully again, the mountain of used plastic piled high in Miss Smith's classroom is going to be used to create all of the costumes for the school's musical. And in this case, the costumes are going to tell a lot of the story, is that right? So they're not really costumes. Is it more of a creature that you're going to be inhabiting? Or is it a costume?
Teachers:
So this is an ostrich and it's got a flexible neck made out of cardboard and plastic bottles and then a head made out of milk jug.
Superintendent:
Can I pick it up or will I damage the spine here? So is this a milk jug on top?
Teacher:
Yes.
Superintendent:
Where are you getting these designs from?
Teacher:
Just off of online and from creativity. But for this one we found online and we're basically trying to copy it as much as we can out of all recycled plastics. One costume I found almost complete was a turtle. So was this the top too? Like about three dozen Walmart, chocolate chip cookies or something?
Teacher:
At some point, I think it was from a Kneaders catering. When Kneaders catered a lunch in here, (I believe it was actually from alumni) the alumni luncheon during homecoming week. So student government donated that to us. Since, they took it and painted it and then all of the parts on top are water bottles. Superintendent:
These are from just water bottles.
Teacher:
Yeah. So it's the pattern.
Superintendent:
If it's the pattern from the bottom of water bottles, I think I see an Aquafina right there.
Teacher:
Yeah.
Superintendent:
Wow. And I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't recognize this catering top. I love a good catered lunch. I kind of pride myself on knowing my food containers a