Wealth of information from waste

Speaking about the work, Zhou says: "It's like some kind of communication between humans and plastics."

"We assume that plastic has life, and it will live longer than any creature," says Zhou. "And we want to ask the question that although the damage continues, whether there is a way for humans to reconcile with plastics.

"Many of us blame plastics for the damage to the environment, but can we live without it? So, the focus should be to reduce the damage, not to simply get rid of plastics."

Liu says that plastic waste can be used to make clothes and ornaments. "Reuse of plastics will be a future trend."

The cable tie, a major raw material of the work, is a commonly-used and often-discarded material by designers.

"It's a very cheap article to fasten the artwork. Many people will buy a large bundle of it but only use a few pieces. The rest will be thrown away," says Liu, adding that they collected wasted cable ties from designers' workshops and other exhibitions.

Besides the overuse of plastics, the idea of overproduction, imbalance and overconsumption is conveyed in Cai Canhuang's artwork Under the Sky at the exhibition.

A total of 239 unused clothes owned by Cai were sewn together to create a huge piece of cloth - 10.3 meters in height and 4.6 meters in width. The work was hung on a scaffold, like a monument or three-dimensional sky.

"You may think you only have dozens of old clothes, but actually you have hundreds of them," he says. "Many people have the same kind of waste. And they may not do it on purpose."

The work also focuses on the problem of imbalance in the distribution of wealth showing how on the one hand, there are poor children who don't have enough clothes, while on the other, unused clothes pile up in someone's closet, according to Cai.

He adds that this is an unfinished work and he will keep adding more unused clothes to it, to imply the continuing waste by human beings.

The exhibition was part of the monthlong Beijing Design Week, which ended on Oct 7. Besides the 20 artworks created using garbage, the exhibition also included a photograph display, a forum about designing based on garbage, a computer game about garbage-sorting, a film screening about environmental protection and a children's art workshop.

Wang Cong, 35, who works for an advertising company in Beijing, visited the exhibition out of interest.

She says the data showcased there shocked her, especially the numbers about how much plastic is being poured in the ocean and how much of it gets into human body.

She adds that the artworks are beautifully designed and can help the public to realize the damage caused by plastic pollution.

Sam Zhang, 36, a salesman in Beijing, says the exhibition is illuminating in that he plans to boil water and use reusable cups more. Before, he often bought boxes of mineral water to drink.