Back in April, Rob Arnold from Rame Peninsula Beach Care team went for a regular stroll on the usually beautiful Tregantle beach, UK, but instead of calming scenery, he found a blanket of microplastics covering the whole shoreline.

“I am fairly used to it as I have been doing it for four years, but the way it was this time was a shock to me, it was desperate,” Rob told Cornwall Live. “I really felt it had gone too far, and it may be too late to help with the ocean pollution, but I thought we might as well try. It was like the ocean had vomited the plastic waste out and presented it to us, and I felt it was our duty to clean it up.”

So Rob started cleaning, and with the help of local volunteers, he managed to scavenge around 35 bags of plastic from the ocean, among which he found a battalion of plastic toy soldiers, a collection of LEGO diving tanks and flippers, and many many more random artifacts, most of which are made out of plastic.

But when Rob is done picking all that stuff off the beach, it doesn’t simply end there. To make the problem of trashing our oceans more visible, he repurposes the rubbish he finds into art projects that you can now witness in an exhibition in Liskeard Museum. It’s a part of The Plastic Age exhibition, which also features contributions from Tracey Williams of Lego Lost at Sea, Michelle Costello of Smartie Lids on the Beach and Louise Slee of Tregantle Beach Treasures, Trinkets and Trash.

Scroll down to see the clever ways these artists are battling the plastic pollution in the ocean below!

(h/t: demilked)

That’s what Rob Arnold found while visiting the usually beautiful Tregantle beach

A blanket of microplastics covering the shoreline

So Rob and a group of volunteers started cleaning…

And in one day they managed to scavenge 35 bags of trash

“I am fairly used to it as I have been doing it for four years, but the way it was this time was a shock to me, it was desperate”

Among the trash, Rob found all kinds of stuff, most of which was plastic

Like a battalion of toy soldiers

And a collection of LEGO diving flippers

All of which get a new life in Rob’s hands, who is also a local artist on the side

Who turns the trash found on the beaches into artistic sculptures

Which are now being exposed in the Plastic Age exposition at Liskeard Museum

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