Ledbury teen's plastics dress highlights sea pollution

Melissa Sanders said she wanted to raise awareness of the amount of plastic being dumped in the sea

A dress made out of recycled plastic packaging has been created by an art student to highlight rubbish floating in the oceans.

Melissa Sanders, a 17-year old from Ledbury in Herefordshire, said the design aimed to create the appearance of fish swimming in coral, using a variety of materials.

"It's quite scary how quick the ocean is turning into something so dirty and so artificial," she said.

She encourages recycling of plastic.

Miss Sanders, who is studying for a Level 3 Diploma in Art and Design at Hereford College of Arts, said her favourite part of the dress was the collar, explaining it was made entirely from fizzy drink bottles and milk cartons.

The shawl is made out of crisp packets, bubble wrap, drinking straws, rubber bands, foam and laminate strips.

And the dress itself is made from heat transfer fabric with trails of recycled fruit and vegetable packaging trimming the hem, representing the fish in the sea.

She named her creation "The Great Plastic Pacific" and said she was "illustrating how the ocean is slowly becoming synthetic, so it looks very fake but beautiful at the same time".

The dress is made of recycled plastics

Melissa Sanders said her favourite part of the dress was the colar, which was made to represent coral

Miss Sanders said by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea than fish and the pollution of the oceans was something "we should be looking into more".

She said more effort should be made to recycle plastics and concluded: "Even though it's rubbish you can make something out of it."

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