This programme for primary and secondary schools is designed to stimulate young people to create arts and crafts from scrap as a way of teaching them about materials reuse.

Competition: build a model boat

School children can use their upcycling skills in a new competition launched by Start Imagining. They simply have to transform reclaimed materials into a model boat in celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The winning team will get a trip to London to see their boats, which will be exhibited at the Old Royal Naval College throughout June.

Check out the Start Imagining website for more info on the competition and to download resource packs

Follow Start Imagining on Twitter for the latest news, or join the Start Imagining community on Facebook.

The WEEE Man at Eden

The WEEE Man sculpture is an example of how we’ve got creative with waste at Eden. He’s a 3.3-tonne structure that represents the amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) the average British household throws away in a lifetime. Find out more about the WEEE Man.

The project has been running since last spring, when we teamed up with HMP Dartmoor and The Conservation Foundation’s Tools Shed project to provide the first permanent garden tool recycling programme in Cornwall.

Old, broken and unwanted tools have been dropped off at the collection point at Eden and then transferred to HMP Dartmoor’s dedicated Tools Shed workshop, where prisoners have been able to learn a variety of new skills while refurbishing the donated items. As a result, they now have 20 sets of reconditioned tools, which will be given away to schools and community gardening groups in Cornwall.

Eden’s Karen Dawkins says: ‘We’ve had some rather weird and wonderful donations; some were so rusty they seemed beyond repair, but the men at HMP Dartmoor have worked hard to refurbish as many tools as possible to ensure the success of this great project.’

David Shreeve, creator of the Conservation Foundation, explains: ‘The project was designed to bring a new and positive approach to recycling. It’s a simple idea, but it has received a fantastic response from the public and has really involved prisoners and prison staff as well as making a difference to many schools and community groups.’

Tools Shed was piloted initially with HMP Wandsworth before being extended to other prisons. Currently tools are being repaired at Morton Hall in Lincolnshire, Bullingdon in Oxfordshire,Thorn Cross Young People’s Institution near Warrington, Feltham Young People’s Institution in London and High Down Prison in Surrey.

How to apply for free gardening tools
To receive a free set of these special tools, or to nominate a deserving school or group, email or write to Karen Dawkins: kdawkins@edenproject.com / Eden Project, Bodelva, Cornwall, PL24 2SG, before Friday 27 January 2012. Please include the name, address, and contact details of the organisation that would receive the tools and a short paragraph on where and how the tools would be used.

The first 20 winners to be selected will be notified by 3 February and invited to collect their tools from Eden between midday and 2pm on Friday 10 February.

How to recycle your old gardening tools
To donate any old, broken or unwanted garden hand tools, drop them off at the Tools Shed collection point, which is situated at the Tyre Shelter on the perimeter road opposite the Eden Project Waste Recycling Centre.

The pots are ethically made in Sri Lanka using the main waste product from coconut farms (coir fibre) and organic latex sourced from local rubber trees.

As well as this being a very eco-friendly and sustainable process to make a plant pot, the hairy growing environment helps to grow really healthy, strong plants. You plant the pot directly into the ground where the pot simply rots away leaving nothing to throw away. And because you’re not taking the plant out of the pot, you’re less likely damage its root system when you plant it.

We believe using these pots can be a great way to not only positively use a waste product but also to go some way in reducing the number of plastic plant pots that end up in landfill.

Now you can buy these hairy lovelies online at the Eden Project shop. They’ll be delivered in a set of six planted with a selection of kitchen herbs and packaged in a specially designed box.

As Eden celebrates its 10th birthday I’m drawn to reflect on my own 10th year. It was the late 70s, when summers seemed long and August had sun for the whole month. When childhood was free range and largely unadulterated, and parents let you stay out for the whole day and half the night, and they really didn’t care where you were or what you were doing, as long as it was legal. A time when you knew who the paedophiles were on your street, and where you managed your own safety, and where climbing trees and the neighbour’s garage roof was common place. A time when clothes were home-made, and you were lucky if your household had one car and a TV – and even that had so few channels you were better off staying out playing truth or dare.

But within all this, one particular memory stirs; a childhood experience that has followed me throughout my life and certainly into my work at Eden. It was the day a friend and I stumbled upon a hoard of treasure. You know when you’re a kid and you really believe you’re going to be the first person to discover a smuggler’s booty hidden in some cave? Well, I discovered my treasure down a country lane, miles from any beach and well hidden from public view by an overgrown Cornish hedge. Okay, it wasn’t teeming with jewel encrusted goblets, or gold and silver coins, or even the remains of a one-eyed pirate skull. In fact, it wasn’t even close to anything Daphne du Maurier would write about, but it was treasure nevertheless.

It was in a fly tipping area; a dumping ground for old household items, albeit illegal. But it contained amazing treasures, like a rusty old Ford Cortina, or a fridge, which was equally rusty, but made a good coffin. There was a tumble dryer, which you’d only climb into if you trusted your mates not to lock you in, and old toasters, televisions and radios, which had enough bits to make a robot, a bomb, or even a time machine. I had a fantastic summer playing in that dump, making things, tinkering, inventing; going on adventures… until one day it was all gone. Someone had reported it to the council and overnight it was cleared out.

For that short time though, our play was fuelled by the artefacts we found. They gave us scope to be scientists, explorers, inventors, adventurers, all the things aspirations are made of. Yes, it was other people’s waste, but let’s be honest; one person’s junk is another person’s play material.

In my work at Eden I recognise that children’s capacity to invent, create, or imagine is not supported by defined, designed or designated play spaces, but rather by spaces full of resources that can be used flexibly. As early as the 1950s our Scandinavian neighbours were tinkering with waste materials in what they called Junk Playgrounds; we now call them Adventure Playgrounds. And while Adventure Playgrounds support children in building their own structures, very few have taken the original concept and allowed children to play with broken tractors, fridges, plastic bottles etc.

If you watch children taking part in Eden’s play schemes during the summer months you’ll see them making and doing things with lots of junk, with bits and bobs, or what we playworkers call ‘loose parts’. They might be constructing dens, or making structures that transport water, or just experimenting without need for an outcome. But each den, structure or experiment will be different from everyone else’s, because there’s no blueprint, plan or map, no designated set of instructions. Play at Eden takes on a different meaning: a stick, a bit of string and a plastic bottle can be anything a child imagines.

As Eden moves into its teenage years I am excited to see what part junk will play within children’s activities both onsite and offsite. Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll have a truly authentic Junk Playground somewhere in Cornwall… If we do, I’d like first dibs on playing in the tumble dryer!

Check out our video on how to make your own den out of junk.

Philip Waters is Eden’s Play Project Coordinator. Find out about our Mud Between Your Toes play schemes.

I was always told that if I looked after my pennies, the pounds would look after themselves. Recently I decided to explore this idea properly, so I came up with Project 1p, a one-year bartering experiment.

On 1 January I set out with a one pence piece and an ambition to trade this ‘worthless’ item for something greater – as many times as I could within the next 365 days.

So far I’ve managed to do the following trades:

• My 1p…
• for some goldfish my friend didn’t have a bowl for…
• for a guitar from a man desperate for a pet he could keep in his rented flat…
• for a bike…
• for 10 square metres of land in Bulgaria…
• for the skilled labour of a metal fabricator…
• for a 1 week eco holiday in a yurt in France…
• for a portrait, made with thousands of pennies, of former HBOS CEO Andy Hornby, a man who himself lost trillions of pennies

I love the idea that something seemingly worthless actually has some value or at least the potential to become something valuable.

But it’s not just about getting the maximum value out of the trades. Bartering creates a sense of mutual benefit for everyone involved. It allows you to see beyond the price tag and consider what an item is truly worth. Not to mention the fact that it can be a great way to recycled your unwanted belongings.

If you fancy giving it a go, there’s a whole host of online swapping and sharing websites out there. Someone could be looking for just what you can offer. The phrase ‘one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure’ has never made so much sense.

p.s. When I visited the Eden Project…
…it inspired me to think about what is really possible instead of making assumptions about what is impossible. It also made me want to live inside a giant greenhouse.

Luke Seall is a gardener from Brighton and founder of Project 1p, which runs from 1 January, 2011 – 31 December 2011.

Try your hand at swapping at Eden’s Cafe in St Austell, where we’ve set up a fantastic book exchange.

As a surfer and coastal dweller I’ve become ever closer to the beach near my house in recent years. In the summer it provides us with a few handfuls of fresh prawns, the occasional lobster, a lucky catch of mackerel and perhaps, if we’re feeling brave, a crab or two. Maybe even some seaweed to nibble on.

The beach has inspired me to find out more about the environment, the edible seashore and the great outdoors and has actually helped to shape my thoughts on food, sustainability and eating fresh. It was my research station when I was writing The Camper Van Cookbook and has provided the backdrop for many photo shoots. It is a quiet and unassuming star.

It has even helped my girls, Maggie and Charlie, understand where their food comes from. They learn about it, they catch it, they eat it. It is the very best classroom, if you ask me.

The beach has also given me colds and flu. There was the day I tested a waterproof coat for a surf magazine in the waterfall, in January. I got another bout on the sunny, crowdless day in May when we stripped off our worldly clobber and dashed into the sea with abandon. After the sharp intake of breath and the goose bumps, there was no freedom like it.

We’ve had parties and get-togethers, when our friends and neighbours have gathered for burgers, driftwood fires and an afternoon under a big blue summer sky. At the other end of the year the beach has given us exercise when we needed it most. Bob, our dog, runs and runs and runs, happy to be free, happy to be a dog on a huge beach. After winter storms big swells bring waves for us to ride. I am, and always will be, happy to be a surfer on a deserted beach. It doesn’t happen often, but enough to keep us on the lookout for perfect conditions.

There’s a lot to be thankful for, for this little Eden we have at the end of our road. The beach treats us well. It, like all the beaches that have helped to make us who we are, gives us so much and asks for nothing in return.

But of course there is a lot we can do for our beaches. It might be beautiful but we still get plastics washing up. In a clean up in spring 2009 the children of our local primary school picked up almost 1500 pieces of rubbish from a 100 yard stretch. They did the same the following year.

I’ve been doing it too. It’s nothing difficult or time consuming or painful, just a little thank you for the happy memories that the beach has given me: a plastic bottle for every good wave or fun time that I’ve had. The bottle goes in the recycling, no questions asked. I’m not apportioning blame or getting annoyed because there are no litter bins. I’m just demonstrating my thanks.

When I visited The Eden Project recently I sat in a recycled plastic chair in Jo’s Cafe and wondered if any of the bottles I had picked up over the years had made the grade. Could they be a part of the chair I was now sitting on? I really hoped so.

It’s a wild thought isn’t it? Like the water that gets drunk seven times before it comes to us. It’s amazing to think that the cast aside and the used up could have more left in it for another day.

How about it? Have you had a great day out at the beach recently? Caught any nice waves? I’m sure there’s room in your bag for just one more happy memory.

p.s. It took me 10 years to get to see the Eden Project…
…but it was worth the wait. As someone who loves the natural environment, getting out and about, and making the most of every moment, I can’t see how anyone can fail to be moved by Eden. It is just so huge – in every way. To have so much love, knowledge and beauty in one place is astounding.

Martin Dorey is a surfer and a writer from North Devon. His BBC TV programme, One Man and his Campervan, which saw him cook, fish, forage and camp all around the UK in his beloved VW, was transmitted in February.

See how Eden has created amazing things with waste at our visitor attraction in Cornwall.

The lovely people at Sylvantutch, who make recycled furniture in the Welsh village of Corris, have given Eden a very special gift. They made a beautiful chair with reclaimed oak fence posts last year. Craftsman Nick Bullen, and his colleagues at Sylvantutch, hauled it up the Welsh mountain Cadair Idris and placed it near the summit as a place for walkers to rest. Local authorities then took exception to the positioning of the chair and ordered it back down the mountain.

Looking for a good home for the chair, Sylvantutch offered to donate it to Eden. They delivered it to our Wild Cornwall exhibit yesterday, where we accepted the gift with thanks and marked the occasion with a ceremony.

Find out more about what’s in our Outdoor Biome.

The amazing structure, created by members of Architecture Sans Frontières-UK during their visit this summer, was made in just four days using only a huge pile of used tyres and a mountain of old wood. (Read our original blog post to find out more.)

The building project is in the picture for a new sustainability category which rewards the project with the most innovative low-carbon design.

All 24 shortlisted projects will be on display at New London Architecture from 8 Feb until 8 March, after which the judges will make their decision. Fingers crossed…

These bags from the Bottletop charity are handmade by linking hundreds of recycled ring-pulls together in a crochet formation. They are made by people from a community project in Salvador, Brazil, using ring-pulls that would otherwise have gone to landfill. The project gives a much needed boost in sustainable income for the team and encourages community cohesion.

We’ve got five different ring-pull bags available in the online Eden Project  shop, and a ring-pull purse:

• Bellani bag
• Paris bag
• Comprido clutch bag
• Anjeliqua clutch bag
• Luciana clutch bag
• Acarage coin purse

Need another ‘rubbish’ Christmas present idea? See our tin can robot.

We’ve made our way through buildings that were under several inches of water, including the Core, the Shop and the Visitor Centre, to help clear up and salvage everything we can.

The team’s sending any waste to our on-site sorting compound – so that we can stick to our Waste Neutral principle of reducing, reusing, recycling, and reinvesting in recycled goods.