BSDC Exhibition: Students Innovate for a Greener Future During Green Week.
Burton and South Derbyshire College students are reimagining waste as a valuable resource, demonstrating how creative design can lead to a more sustainable future.
By Tom Drysdale
Burton and South Derbyshire College (BSDC) students are not just learning design principles; they're actively shaping a more sustainable future. As part of this year's East Staffordshire Green Week, 3D and Mixed Media students at BSDC recently unveiled a thought-provoking sustainability-themed exhibition on campus, demonstrating how creative design can breathe new life into discarded materials.
This impactful project was a key part of the students' induction, focusing on the creative potential of waste. As Kiran Moorley, Creative Tutor at BSDC, explained, "The idea was to reuse waste and that's where it started." Students began by collecting everyday objects destined for landfill, experimenting with how materials like paper could be manipulated – folded, bent, pleated, or woven – to understand their inherent properties. The central question guiding their work was: "How can waste be elevated into high-quality, purposeful design?"
The exhibition, presented as part of the wider Great Big Green Week (7th–15th June), showcased their final pieces at near-real scale, illustrating how repurposed materials can be meaningfully integrated into interior spaces. A particular focus was on discarded paper, transformed through expressive mark-making into richly textured surfaces that then became structural forms for lighting, sculptural elements, or spatial dividers.
Kiran emphasised that the exhibition is "more than a display of creativity; it’s a powerful learning experience that reinforces essential ideas about the design process, sustainability and purposeful making."
“While sustainable practices often emerge naturally in artistic processes, this project encouraged learners to think more deeply about why sustainability matters.”
We also had the opportunity to speak with Ben, one of the talented students involved in the project. Ben shared insights into his personal end-of-year project: restoring an old, unloved motorbike. He went beyond simple restoration, aiming to integrate sustainable materials and 3D-printed fairings (body panels) using sustainable PLA. Ben's vision is to combine classic motorbike aesthetics with futuristic, electric designs, creating bespoke pieces that challenge mass production. "If we can get to a point where sustainable PLA is... cheaper than just regular... ready-made PLA, that would be amazing," he remarked. His work explores a "more bespoke way to design" and produce items, recovering materials that might otherwise be discarded.
Kiran highlighted the significance of Ben's approach, noting that his project questions the need for mass production and its associated waste, advocating for a more considered and sustainable production of items. The college nurtures both traditional hands-on skills and new technologies like 3D printing, ensuring students like Ben understand materials fundamentally before applying advanced techniques.
BSDC Exhibition: Immersive experience emphasising sustainability.
Ben finds the challenge of sustainable design "welcome," pushing him to explore new materials, even if they are initially harder to work with. He believes it's worthwhile if the end product is environmentally sustainable. For Kiran, it's gratifying to see students like Ben think critically about where materials come from and their impact. She noted a shift where learners now consider "what I wear, where I buy from, how I’m going to make things in a completely different way."
The connection to East Staffordshire Green Week is clear. Ben explained that the project encouraged students to "go out to parks and then... find something on the floor... use that to make something artistic or you'd use that to wrap around something." He finds it rewarding to "take something off the street, use it to make an art piece, and... it's now beautiful." Kiran added that Green Week provides a vital "focus" for these conversations, helping people "think about what is green."
BSDC Exhibition: Kiran Moorley and Ben Marshall
Looking ahead, Ben hopes to see more widespread recycling and reuse of products, imagining plastic waste being repurposed into 3D printer filament. He believes industry has a significant role to play in enabling more sustainable choices. Both Ben and Kiran see the current generation of designers as potential change-makers, bringing sustainability to the forefront of industries from the ground up.
Ben's own next steps involve pursuing a degree in Product Design at Staffordshire University, with plans for a placement year to gain industry experience. He aspires to design the aesthetics and functionality of future vehicles – cars, motorbikes, lorries, and trains – pushing for more futuristic and sustainable designs.
This inspiring exhibition at BSDC truly demonstrates how local education is empowering students to lead the way in creating a greener, more thoughtful world through the power of design. It's clear that these young talents are not just learning; they're innovating for a better tomorrow.
Have a positive community story to share? Email Tom Drysdale at tom.drysdale@burtonecho.co.uk, and we’ll do our best to bring it to life!
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