The Litter Free Auroville 2017 Trashion show

In 2010, the Auroville community came together to work towards dealing with one of humanity’s dirtiest problems – waste! 1,500 people joined an Auroville-wide litter clean-up. Since that initial awareness-raising campaign, Auroville’s recycling rates have increased to 80%. These numbers are definitely a positive step in the right direction. However, the overall amount of waste generated in and around Auroville is steadily increasing and we, and our neighbors, are running out of landfill space. In order to tackle this problem in the wider bioregion, WasteLess, in collaboration with Upcycling Studio and Eco Service, has been working towards a community event that will coincide with Auroville’s 50th Anniversary and inspire positive change in our consumption and disposal behavior. This year’s ‘Litter Free Auroville 2017’ campaign represented a taste of the main event that will be launched next year. The campaign is in line with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Movement), a Government of India campaign launched in October 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clean India.

A key highlight of the Litter Free Auroville celebrations has long been the Trashion Show, and this year was no different. A beyond full-capacity crowd at the Visitor’s Centre witnessed an incredible display of beautiful and creative fashion designs made out of trash. Coordinated by the amazing team of Arlet, Jesse, Mukta and Ok, twenty-seven talented Auroville designers worked for two months on their waste-inspired creations, creating a total of thirty-nine outfits that were paraded down the catwalk by Auroville’s next top models in front of an adoring crowd.

“The goal of the Litter Free Auroville campaign is to work towards creating a centre where an integral approach to the issue of waste can be explored by the three organisations,” says Ribhu from WasteLess. “We wish to engage all Aurovilians and inspire them to be conscious of their own waste and join us in experimenting to find solutions to this global problem. You’ll be glad to hear that we don’t expect everyone to start wearing their own trash, but we hope that the Trashion show serves to highlight how waste can be seen in a new light by turning what we would consider as useless or dirty into something beautiful.”

The stunning designs on show at Visitor’s Centre were fashioned from a variety of materials, including juice cups, rubber tubes, insulation material, PET plastic bottles, discarded fishing nets, tetra packs, scrap fabric and paper, medicine blister packs, old X-rays and much much more. The designers carefully washed and dried items found in their own bins, at the EcoService, and on Auroville beaches. Chandrah from WasteLess adds: “It was inspiring to see what was created and we look forward to celebrating Auroville’s 50th birthday in style with an all-out fun, creative, and engaging community celebration!”