Recycled material makes winning entries

ON World Ocean’s Day last Thursday, Park Boulevard Centre held a prize giving ceremony to honour the children that made the top three in their Smart Art competition. The aim of the competition was to encouraged children to create art using recyclable items.

Out of the 20 finalists who produced some extremely creative art, first place went to eight-year-old Riya Ramlall from Chelsea Preparatory who was awarded R1 500 for herself and R5 000 for her school. Her art piece that resembled a peacock was made from a plastic bottle, toilet roll holder and hand wash container pump and wooden skewers.

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Second place went to nine-year-old Kiara Rhamdani who was awarded R800 and third place went to 12-year-old Andile Shangase who was awarded R500. Both children represent St Michaels Primary, who was placed second as a school, thus winning R2500.

Rhamdani was selected for her space shuttle made from plastic bottle caps, polystyrene, a toilet roll holder and tin foil and Shangase was selected for her recycled car, made from corrugated cardboard, a plastic bottle, tin foil, polystyrene and wire.

Joining in for the prize giving ceremony was the current third runner up of the 2016 Miss Earth South Africa Leadership Programme, Mireesha Narsai, who explained the importance of recycling to the winners and applauded them for using waste creatively. She was assisted by Elisabeth Pretorius, the Centre Manager of Park Boulevard Centre.

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“Upon collecting all of the entries, we were overwhelmed by the number of children that had taken time out to get creative with their projects. We hope that through this competition, children have become more aware about recycling and have learn’t its importance, especially the threat unwanted waste and pollution has on our oceans and marine life,” said Pretorius.

To view the entries and winning art works, visit the Park Boulevard Centre Facebook page.