Plastic Mountain – Environmental Community Art
Plastic Mountain was a large-scale environmental community art project that highlighted the detrimental impact of plastic waste while creating a powerful sense of place and community in West Norwood, London. The project combined the accessibility of grassroots community art with excellence in contemporary public sculpture to tackle one of society’s most pressing problems: plastic pollution. This groundbreaking environmental community art project combined activism with collaborative creativity.
The artwork took the form of a striking pyramid built from layers of rammed earth, with locally collected plastic litter embedded within its structure. Supported by a concealed steel framework, the sculpture slowly eroded over four months through natural weathering, gradually revealing the persistent plastic waste trapped within—a powerful visual metaphor for how plastic pollution outlasts the natural world around it.
Plastic Mountain West Norwood, London (2023)
Rammed Earth with Embedded Plastic Litter and Steel Framework
Briony Marshall in collaboration with Adeline Alletti
2.5m tall
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
The Vision Behind the Work
This environmental community art project had two fundamental purposes. First, we aimed to create a sense of place and community for West Norwood as we were coming out of the pandemic. Second, we wanted to present a visual metaphor for plastic waste in our society. So that people could be inspired to imagine new ways of living in harmony with the earth.
Plastic Mountain explored themes of geological time and environmental degradation, focusing on contemporary pollution. The work aimed to make the invisible problem of microplastics visible. At the same time, it celebrated the power of collective action.
Environmental Community Art Project Collaboration
What distinguished Plastic Mountain from traditional public art was its collaborative and educational nature. The project engaged audiences across the local borough and beyond. Specifically, we focused on reaching economically restricted and diverse communities. The area was identified as one of the 20% most deprived in the UK.
Plastic Mountain children’s workshops at West Norwood Feast Festival
Initially, the project launched in 2021 with a crowdfunder rallying under the cry of “we are Plastic Mountain”. This campaign enabled the creation of a large-scale mural that presented the problems and solutions to the plastic crisis. The mural was displayed in empty shop windows on Norwood Road. During this phase, 44 students from The Norwood School, Elmgreen School, and Rathbone Youth Club participated in litter picks, timeline games about plastic degradation, and collaborative art-making.
The Plastic Mountain Mural – co-created with local young people
Unveiling the Mural
Subsequently, the mural moved to the West Norwood Library and Picture House Cinema during the collaborative build phase of Plastic Mountain. Furthermore, additional workshops in the schools created a presentation explaining the ideas behind the mural that was shown to the public.
Then, over three intensive weeks in July 2023, the collaborative build of Plastic Mountain unfolded. Local volunteers, school children, and community groups participated in the on-site construction.
The Process
The sculpture’s creation was both artwork and performance. Community volunteers worked alongside the artist team to:
- Collect plastic waste through organised litter picks around West Norwood
- Prepare the earth mixture with natural pigments and clay
- Build the sculpture layer by layer, embedding the collected plastic waste
On Sunday 6th August 2023, Plastic Mountain was unveiled before a large crowd of community members, marking the beginning of its gradual transformation. As the sculpture weathered naturally over four months, passersby witnessed the earth gradually washing away, leaving behind a ghostly metal framework festooned with the collected plastic litter—a haunting reminder of our environmental impact.
Unveiling of the sculpture on the 6th August 2023
The sculpture after the unveiling already starting to attract passers by’s attention
Educational Impact
The project included an accompanying engagement programme which specifically targeted participants from economically restricted and diverse backgrounds. This involved workshops in four local primary schools, where Year 5 and 6 pupils learned about plastic degradation timelines, the science of decomposition, and environmental stewardship through hands-on activities. Each school created their own small Plastic Mountains sculpture for their outdoor space.
Primary School Mini-Plastic-Mountains. Made by the year 5 and 6 pupils at each school. From the left: St Josephs, St Lukes, Julians West Norwood and Julians Streatham.
The primary school educational component reached 509 participants across schools including St Josephs, St Luke’s Church of England Primary, Julians West Norwood and Julians Streatham.
Furthermore, we transformed the workshops into a comprehensive teachers pack. The Art Academy London distributed this resource widely. Additionally, 10 primary school teachers participated in our training program. These teachers came from schools across Southeast England. We organized a half-day training session specifically for them. As a result, the project’s educational impact extended far beyond the local community.
Project Partners and Funding
We were able to reach deep into the local community thanks to wonderfully supportive project partners. These included the local Business Improvement District (Station to Station), Norwood Forum, West Norwood Feast, Knowles of Norwood, Rathbone Youth Group, two secondary schools and four local primary schools. The project was funded by Arts Council England and match-funded by Lambeth Council, Norwood Forum, and Friends of the Earth. We received further financial support from a large number of local residents and project supporters through our crowdfunding campaign.
The collaborative approach extended to working with Lambeth Friends of the Earth on the environmental education aspects, the Royal Society of Sculptors for mentoring, The Art Academy London for dissemination of the Teachers’ Pack and Julian Wild for metalwork fabrication. This network of partnerships demonstrated the project’s potential to create lasting connections within the local creative and environmental communities.
Legacy and Impact
Plastic Mountain created significant and lasting community engagement throughout its lifecycle.
During the West Norwood Feast festival, the project took on new dimensions of hope and transformation. Community members were invited to participate in workshops where they could replace the weathered plastic litter with small plywood cards on which they wrote or drew hopes for the future, pledges they made, or comments on the artwork. This participatory element transformed the sculpture from a stark reminder of environmental damage into a beacon of collective optimism and commitment to change.
The sculpture was seen by tens of thousands of people during its four-month presence on Norwood Road, fulfilling its mission to raise awareness about plastic pollution while building community connections.
On 17th November 2023, Plastic Mountain was relocated to a semi-permanent home opposite West Norwood station, ensuring its continued presence as a landmark and conversation starter in the community.
Technical Innovation
The sculpture represented an evolution in my exploration of rammed earth techniques, building on the success of Layers of Bournemouth while incorporating new elements of community participation and environmental messaging. The integration of a structural steel framework allowed for the controlled erosion process while ensuring public safety throughout the sculpture’s four-month transformation.
The choice of materials—natural earth and found plastic waste—embodied the project’s central message about the relationship between natural and artificial materials in our environment. The final transformation from environmental warning to community hope board demonstrated art’s power to facilitate social change and collective action.
Continuing the Conversation
Plastic Mountain exemplifies my ongoing investigation into how sculpture can address contemporary environmental challenges while building community connections. 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year worldwide. But plastic is so permanent, ‘it does not go away,’ as Sir David Attenborough said himself. Now is the time to act at global and local levels.
The completed project demonstrated how art can catalyse community action around environmental issues, evolving from a stark environmental warning into a symbol of collective hope and commitment to change. The sculpture’s journey from its creation in July 2023 to its transformation that autumn during the West Norwood Feast festival embodied the project’s core message: that community action can transform environmental challenges into opportunities for positive change.
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