Kids Make Art From Recycled Washing Machines

Kids in Sussex have been involved in an unusual project at their local museum - they made art out of old washing machines.

photo of a person looking through a washing machine door

It all happened at the Chichester District Museum.

The children, from Fordwater School, Chichester High School for Girls and Lancastrian Infants School, took apart more than 100 broken down washers and recycled parts of them to create pictures and sculptures.

The Lancastrian Infants made a forest of trees using the copper wire inside the machines and the Chichester High School pupils created huge recycled sculptures from washers they took apart themselves.

Many of the artworks are now on display in The Eastgate Gallery in Chichester, although some of the sculptures were too big to fit in the gallery there.


Recycling old objects to use in art isn't a new thing - people have been doing it for years - although this is the first time we've heard of washing machines being taken apart for it.

One sculpture which made a lot of people think about the effects of war was called The Throne Of Weapons.

It was a big chair made out of old guns and there is lots of information about it on the British Museum's website.

photo of a chair made up of parts of old guns

photo of two children holding a dove shaped sculpture made up of toy guns and soldiers

These children from Pilgrims Way Primary School in London were inspired by The Throne Of Weapons to make their own peace sculpture.

Photo © Christian Aid / Jon Challicom


They made a large dove shape out of old toy guns and soldiers.


Ptolemy Elrington is an artist from Brighton who makes sculptures of animals and machines out of recycled parts of old cars and even broken shopping trolleys and vacuum cleaners.

This little chap is a water vole made from a broken shopping trolley.

photo of a model water vole made of wire

photo of a model sheep dog in a park made of old car hubcaps

Here's Mabel the sheep dog.

Ptolemy made Mabel for the Blue Peter garden where she now lives.

She's made out of recycled hubcaps - parts of the wheels of a car.

An old vacuum cleaner was used to make this Tornado jet plane.

Ptolemy cleverly used the vacuum cleaner's motor to make the model make roaring engine sounds.

photo of a jet plane made up of of parts of a vacuum cleaner

You don't need to be a trained artist or go to a workshop to create recycled art though - there are loads of things around the house that can be made into art.

Just be sure to ask first before you recycle it - you don't want to turn something new and valuable into a wacky sculpture by mistake!

We'd love to see what you come up with - send your pictures in and we'll show as many as we can.