NCD Governor, Powes Parkop said, “In terms of rubbish, NCD collects and dumps about 100 tons a day.”
“It is a big challenge for everyone to reach an outcome where we recycle, reduce and reuse,” Mr. Parkop added.
The BSP Trash to Treasure Sculpture Festival, an initiative of the Port Moresby Nature Park, aims to raise awareness of the growing issue of waste, specifically plastic pollution.
The sculptures have been spread across the parks 12 acres of public accessible areas to enable visitors to enjoy the Park’s green open spaces.
Park CEO, Michelle McGeorge said, “It’s not just the responsibility of the Provincial government to manage waste but it is also our responsibility to think about our purchase decisions.”
“The idea of creating larger than life animal sculptures is a visual reminder to every person – young and old- to think about their waste and need to reduce reuse and recycle,” Ms. McGeorge added.
The staff of Nature Park along with UPNG interns have worked over a couple of months to transform common rubbish collected around the city into amazing larger than life animal sculptures that highlight the potential value of turning trash into treasured objects.
Visitors to this year’s event will be able to view the addition of 7 new sculptures.
Ms. McGeorge said, “On exciting things from our clean up this year, with the banning of plastic bags, we noticed a significant reduction in the amount of plastic bags we were collecting from our cleanups as compared to before…”
Planning and designing of the new sculptures started as early as January.
NCD Governor, Powes Parkop also highlighted the need to plant more trees.
“We are taking things for granted that everywhere there are trees, but I want to remind us that the rate in which we are cutting and depleting the trees are faster than we are growing them,” the Governor emphasized.
To ensure that visitors have plenty of time to attend and ensure that crowd numbers are minimized, the Park has extended the length of the Festival this year to 2 months, from the 4th of July to the 30th of August.
BSP Head of Marketing and Public Relations, Gorothy Semi says, “We encourage residents to come out and support the Park.”
