By Steve Schaefer

While walking with my wife in downtown San Francisco on July 22^nd, I looked into a gallery window and saw the Beatles—John, Ringo, Paul, and George—walking along, just like on the Abbey Road album cover. Of course, I had to investigate.

The life-size work is made up of four separate statues, lined up and looking remarkably like the famous cover of the Beatles’ final album of work together. But here’s the kicker—the statues are made out of approximately 10,000 vinyl records! The top half of each Beatle is made of about 2,000 hand-cut records and the bottom half contains about 450 melted records. Artist Georges Monfils either used a speed scroll saw and pliers to hand cut the discs or a professional heat gun to achieve the effect.

That’s a lot of vinyl that will hopefully never see a landfill. And that’s important, because one way to handle the mass of plastic we use every day is to find a new purpose for it. The goal is to avoid sending more to places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or to our landfills. If it’s burned, it goes into the atmosphere, something we really want to avoid.

Reuse and repurposing are great ways to make it a win/win. For example, Sea2See uses plastic from the ocean to make glasses frames. Old decks make great bodies for guitars. See my blog post about both.

It’s so much more than just recycling—it’s about moving towards zero waste. I recently heard a talk by Climate Reality Leader Nancy Hu, who studies (and practices) the art of zero waste. She told the audience about the 5 R’s (well, it’s 7 actually):

1. Refuse – Don’t get it in the first place (do you really need it?)
2. Reduce – Use less
3. Reuse/Repair/Repurpose – This triple-R includes different aspects of keeping an item out of the trash once it’s already made.
4. Rot – Compost organics like paper and food scraps.
5. Recycle – This helps, but is really the last resort (another R word)

You can contact Nancy at nchsu514@gmail.com for more information on zero waste.

It’s likely Monfils’ stunning artwork will be treasured, so it won’t see a landfill for a long, long time. You could be the lucky owner. Contact Gefen Fine Art in downtown San Francisco, at 415-323-4080 or info@gefenfineart.com. The price? $250,000.

For more information on zero waste, see these websites:

• https://www.storyofplastic.org/watch
• https://zerowastehome.com/
• https://myplasticfreelife.com/