Scraponomics Episode 135: ScrapFest Collection Day 2016 is upon us!

“Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” — Teddy Roosevelt

It’s hard to believe it’s been eight years, but ScrapFest is just around the corner. The public may be most aware of the exhibition and auction, which will be in mid July. This weekend, though, is when the craziness begins.

Enter ScrapFest Collection Day.

Every year, 15-20 teams get one hour to pick up to 500 lbs. of metal out of our processing plant. When all is said and done, Friedland ends up donating around 10,000 lbs. of metal for the event.

The teams then get two weeks to make a sculpture. In recent years, rather than just having the exhibition and auction right when the two weeks is finished, photos and descriptions of the sculptures are now posted online in an effort to attract people from all over to participate in the auction.

The other cool difference, which we’ll discuss in more detail in a later episode, is that ScrapFest is its own festival now. That means there will be plenty of family-oriented stuff going on, like kids activities and food trucks.

In the meantime, though, let’s focus on Collection Day. I’ve said before that the coolest part from Friedland’s perspective is to show the public how the metal that the teams use to create a sculpture would have been re-melted into new products anyway. It’s still awesome, though, to see the metal take a very different turn on its journey; for it to take the repurpose road rather than the recycle road.

If you’re free this Saturday morning at 10am, it’s definitely worth checking out Collection Day. You may notice that some teams go into Collection Day with a concept in mind, and then try to find whatever scrap they can to meet that concept.

Join us, and see how scrap becomes art.

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