Why Those Junky Political Signs Are for the Birds
Policy + Politics

Why Those Junky Political Signs Are for the Birds

You know those political campaign signs that have been littering the landscape? You may soon be sitting on one of them. 

With midterm elections largely behind us now, thousands of political campaign signs across the country have become useless. That’s why many cities like some in Arizona are encouraging residents to take the signs to specially designated recycling sites. But creative minds have found even better uses for them. 

Related: Election Day Brings Silly Season to a Merciful End 

Crafty people are using the signs, which are often made of corrugated plastic with a wooden base, to make everything from storage containers and pendant lights to chairs and even handbags.

Internationally, Brazilian design firm Mobilize Brasil has recently partnered with the Brazilian outpost of New York-based ad agency J. Walter Thompson to work on the Political Furniture Project.

The firm has turned political sign parts – mostly the wooden pieces – from the recent Brazilian presidential election into elegant coffee tables, coat racks and stools, as first reported by Creativity.

“It is an exercise in recycling that seeks to look into a problem as an opportunity,” Mauricio Arruda, an architect who designed five pieces of furniture built from the discarded political campaign boards, told Good magazine.

Related: 6 Hot-Button Issues on State Ballots This Election Day

“It’s an attitude that reflects a more conscious citizen, concerned not just about consumption but also about the sources of raw material and how to dispose of what we consume, even becoming a recycler and co-author of the design process.”

The firm has also provided tutorials to help people build their own furniture using recycled political signs.

A few years ago, a Quebec group called Les Fourmis even reused plastic political signs to create birdhouses

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