Circular Online speaks to CIWM Associate Member Chukwubuikem Ndubuisi Daniels about how his ‘Trash to Art’ project has reached audiences traditional messaging often misses.
While new technologies and infrastructure are crucial for waste management, Leicester-based artist Chukwubuikem Ndubuisi ‘Chubby’ Daniels is proving that changing hearts and minds requires a more human-centred approach.
His ‘Trash to Art‘ project demonstrates how creative engagement can foster the behavioural shifts needed for a circular economy, reaching audiences traditional messaging often misses.
If you want people to think differently about waste, stop telling them and start creating with them. This is the core philosophy behind the Trash to Art project, a series of community workshops and a subsequent public exhibition that took Leicester by storm in November 2025.
The project started with a simple observation. “Public conversations about waste are dominated by infrastructure, tonnage, and economics,” Daniels explains.
“These are vital, but they don’t change how people feel when they throw something away. Culture – how we emotionally relate to waste – is the missing piece. My goal was to make sustainability cultural, not just procedural.”
Funded by Arts Council England through its National Lottery Project Grants programme and supported by De Montfort University’s Community Challenge Fund, the five-month initiative engaged more than 40 community participants across Leicester in reimagining discarded materials as sources of creative potential.
From bin to beautiful: The workshop experience
The initiative began with a series of free, drop-in workshops held in community centres and libraries across Leicester. The premise was simple: provide a space, some basic tools, and a colourful array of clean, discarded materials, and let people create.
The materials themselves were sourced from a local ecosystem of waste. Coffee sacks came from independent cafés, off-cuts of wood and tile samples were donated by construction firms, and colourful plastics were collected from local businesses. This sourcing was the first step in the storytelling process.
“In one of our workshops at The Centre Project, we worked with piles of discarded bottle caps collected from local cafés,” Daniels recalls.
“One participant arranged them into a colourful flower pattern, turning what was once rubbish into something beautiful. Each cap carried a bit of everyday life – drinks, brands, moments – and when they came together, they told a new story. Seeing that transformation was a reminder that change often starts with how we choose to see what’s around us.”
Participant feedback was immediate and powerful. “I never thought I could make art,” said one workshop attendee. “Now I walk down the street and see potential everywhere, not rubbish. It’s completely changed my perspective.”
Another parent noted the project’s ripple effect within their family: “My kids are now my chief waste auditors. They keep bringing me things from the recycling bin, asking, ‘Can we make something with this?’ That’s a behavioural shift that no leaflet could ever inspire.”
How the exhibition makes the invisible, visible
The five-month project culminated in a five-day public exhibition at the Haymarket Shopping Centre in November 2025. For many of the 40+ participants, it was the first time they had ever seen their work professionally displayed.
“The moment a participant sees their artwork on a plinth, under a spotlight, with a proper label – that’s a moment of profound validation,” says Daniels. “The item they created from ‘rubbish’ is suddenly accorded value and respect. That experience fosters a deep sense of ownership, not just of the art, but of the sustainability principle it represents.”
The exhibition design was intentional. Each label clearly identified the artwork’s title, the creator, and a detailed list of the source materials: ‘Fused plastic from local café yogurt pot lids,’ or ‘Frame made from construction site timber off-cuts.’
“This ‘material storytelling’ was crucial,” Daniels emphasises. “It made the circular economy tangible. Visitors weren’t just looking at a nice sculpture; they were looking at a coffee cup lid they might have thrown away themselves, transformed into something beautiful. It makes the abstract concept of recycling incredibly relatable.”
The exhibition demonstrated the principles of a circular economy in action – extending product life, finding value in ‘waste’ materials, and creating new economic and cultural value from discarded resources. The impact extended beyond casual shoppers. Local schools arranged organised visits, and teachers reported a direct effect.
“We had a teacher from a primary school in Braunstone tell us that after their visit, her students started a ‘scrap club,’ collecting clean recyclables from their homes to use for classroom art projects,” Daniels shares. “That’s active, community-driven circularity in action.”
What lessons were learned?
From months of on-the-ground engagement, a clear set of insights emerged for practitioners looking to replicate this model:
Creativity is a Gateway: People initially come for the art-making – a positive, low-barrier activity. The environmental awareness is a powerful by-product, not the hard sell.
Community Ownership is Key: Hands-on participation creates champions. Participants become advocates within their own social networks, driving change more authentically than top-down messaging.
Accessibility is Non-Negotiable: Holding sessions in local, familiar venues, making them free, and offering flexible timing and translation support is essential for engaging groups often excluded from sustainability conversations.
Celebrate, Don’t Berate: The project’s ethos was built on joy, creativity, and pride. This positive reinforcement is a far more powerful motivator for long-term sustainable behaviour than campaigns rooted in guilt or fear.
Navigating challenges: The artist-waste manager interface
The project was not without its operational hurdles. Sourcing a consistent and clean supply of specific discarded materials required Daniels to build and maintain relationships with local businesses – a time-consuming task often outside an artist’s usual skill set.
“A constant challenge was the balance between aesthetics and authenticity,” he admits. “There’s a temptation to use a new pot of glue or a pristine piece of card to perfect a piece. We had to constantly ask ourselves, ‘Are we staying true to the ethos?’ It’s a tightrope walk between artistic quality and material purity.”
Perhaps the most significant challenge, and the greatest opportunity for sector collaboration, lies in impact measurement.
“We have overwhelming qualitative data – powerful stories of changed attitudes and new habits,” Daniels explains. “But how do we translate a beautiful sculpture made from bottle caps into kilograms of waste diverted from landfill or metrics that resonate with waste management professionals? This is the critical bridge that needs to be built between the arts and resource management sectors.”
Conclusion: Expanding imagination
Encouraged by the success in Leicester, Daniels is now developing a solution: an open-source ‘Trash to Art Toolkit’, set to launch in early 2026. Designed for artists, local authorities, educators, and community leaders, the toolkit will provide a replicable framework, including workshop templates, material-sourcing guides, and – crucially – a draft framework for impact measurement.
“This is the key to scaling this approach,” Daniels asserts. “The vision is to foster partnerships between two worlds that rarely meet: artists, who bring creativity and deep public engagement skills, and waste professionals, who bring the technical understanding and infrastructure. We need both the imagination and the systems to build a circular future.”
The Trash to Art exhibition may have been packed away, but its legacy is alive in Leicester. Participants continue to make art from household waste, skills are being shared among neighbours, and local schools have embedded creative reuse into their curricula.
The project stands as a compelling case study in the power of cultural intervention. By engaging hands and hearts, it achieved a level of connection that information campaigns struggle to reach.
As Chubby Daniels often reminds his workshop groups, a statement that could serve as a mantra for a new approach to public engagement: “Sustainability isn’t only about saving resources – it’s about expanding our collective imagination.”
You can learn more about the Trash to Art project or to register interest in the upcoming toolkit here.
Chubby Daniels is a visual artist and CIWM associate member based in Leicester. His practice explores the intersection of creativity and sustainability, transforming recycled materials into artworks that challenge assumptions about waste and value.