G7 Mount Recyclemore sculpture dismantled at Eden Project

Boris Johnson's bust was taken off the Mount Recyclemore sculpture by crane

A sculpture of world leaders shaped like Mount Rushmore that appeared near the G7 Summit in Cornwall last year has been dismantled.

The Mount Recyclemore sculpture aimed to highlight the environmental damage caused by electronic waste.

It was made from 20,000 discarded products, including mobile phones, consoles and computer parts.

It was dismantled at the Eden Project ahead of International E-Waste Day on Friday.

Using a crane, workers removed the busts of the world leaders one by one before taking them away.

Mount Recyclemore was made from more than 20,000 discarded electronic products

The Mount Recyclemore sculpture was made to highlight the environmental damage caused by electronic waste

Jo Elworthy, from the Eden Project, said every part of the project would be recycled.

"We put it in a year ago, it was always designed to be here a year," she said.

"Live moves on, some of the leaders in the sculpture have moved on, and by taking it down we're making another statement about how we recycle it now."

'Helped understand e-waste'

Sculptor Joe Rush, who was commissioned by musicMagpie to create the artwork, had wanted to show why electronic waste needed to be made more easily reusable or recyclable.

The project was initially positioned across the water from the Carbis Bay Hotel, where the G7 leaders stayed, in an attempt to attract their attention.

It featured the busts of Boris Johnson, Yoshihide Suga, Emmanuel Macron, Mario Draghi, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel and Joe Biden.

After the summit, the installation travelled to Stockport before it was rebuilt at the Eden Project in October 2021.