Kansas City News Blog

The Smithsonian Institution might as well enshrine the water fountain in its collection of cultural artifacts, thanks to the way Americans guzzle their liquids from little plastic bottles. Luckily, a backlash is brewing against containers with a life cycle of one measly serving. Through the end of the month, one student at the University of Kansas is reincarnating recyclables to make an artistic point.

In 2007 alone, KU students bought more than 430,000 bottles of water on campus. Matthew Farley, a senior from Wichita, says that doesn't make much sense.

Even at just $1 per 20-ounce bottle, students are coughing up $6.40 a gallon for a commodity that flows free from the tap, says Farley, a sculpture major. Worse, the environment pays a hefty price when as many as 80 percent of the bottles end up in the landfill.

Last month, Farley turned a small fraction of those plastic containers into "Frozen Assets." Typically during the winter months, the Chi Omega Fountain, at the center of a high-traffic area of campus, is empty. In just two weeks, Farley used 1,040 empty water bottles to turn the fountain into a talking piece by creating cascading arcs of recyclables.

This isn't Farley's first foray into the art of water. Nor is it the first time he has dabbled in materials not sold at craft stores. He's been fascinated and inspired by Kansas City's fountains and worked with other media that might otherwise have ended up in the trash.

"I don't think of these bottles as recycled," he says. "I really think of them as re-used. Because I had been working with post-consumer plastics, naturally, when I was thinking about water and fountains, I thought about bottled water."

Since 1992, the university has processed nearly 5,400 tons of post-consumer materials for recycling, so Farley enlisted the manager of KU Recycling to help pick out the water bottles from the mountains of PET plastic. The sheer number was astonishing, Farley says. "There were so many bottles that I was able to sort through them and only use one brand," he says. "That's what gives the sculpture the blue tint."

The sculpture will remain on display until the end of the month. Farley says reception has been positive and thoughtful so far. He hopes to recycle his inspiration in our City of Fountains sometime soon.