Crockery for Culture

Long description

San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalinas archipelago is located in the Colombian Caribbean Sea. It receives 1.5 million tourists a year and is one of the most populated departments in the country. These cause an excessive amount of trash that is not being treated correctly since the island’s poor infrastructure, small area and non-existent culture of recycling.

Although plastic may seem like a big problem for the island’s environmental health, it is not. Currently there is a company that produces electric energy by the incineration of dry fuels. The third most produced residue is glass, representing the 7,21% of residential residues and 9,53% of commercial residues. Although it is a big amount of the island lees, it is not being recycled nor being treated by the energy plant because it can’t be incinerated. This causes the accumulation of leftover glass in landfills and underground dumps.

As a result, we stablished the crystal clay spots where people can have an experience of being reunite and exchange ancestral knowledge, by reusing and recycling glass for the making of handcrafted tableware. This is inspired by the “totumos”, the fruit of the crescentia cujete tree, which was ancestrally used for the creation of local crockery. Therefore, tableware will be made out of ceramic and its glaze made out of cullet, and some others will be made out recycled glass in a variety of colors like green, amber, brown or transparent since they can’t be mixed due to their different chemical components.

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