Straw Forward

Straw Forward was a collaborative effort of restaurants, businesses, and nonprofits to collect used and littered plastic-based items and turn them into a work of art in order to raise awareness and foster meaningful dialogue around the global-scale issues of single-use plastic waste and plastic pollution.

The Straw Forward art installation was made from plastic barrels, a pool cover, pool noodles, Styrofoam, over 25,000 plastic straws, plastic bags, crates, yarn made from saved plastic bottles, and other discarded plastic items.

All items used were donated, gathered from participating collection locations, or picked up as litter.

WQED’s Pittsburgh 360 highlights Straw Forward in this short video.

And here’s another behind the scenes video of our project (many thanks to Available Light for this film production)!