In Italy, some artists have been working with plastic for years. Not as a trend, but as a conscious choice. Some work on detailed mosaics using everyday waste. Others reshape industrial scraps into objects that challenge the way we see beauty and material. It’s not about glamorising waste. It’s about asking different questions with what we already have.
In this article in collaboration with Plastic Free Odv Onlus, we highlight the creatives who are rethinking what plastic can become.
Wearable Pieces
1. Salma Moustafa
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Based in Italy, the studio creates unique jewelry re-using silica gel balls, recycled plastic and materials collected from coastal areas. Especially silica gel that comes in little bags with many of our purchases normally are perceived as trash, but they are very hard to recycle. Salma has a very original solution to this: creating colorful earrings!
Each piece is made by hand in Italy using low-impact processes. The materials are cleaned, reshaped, and reimagined into lightweight, sculptural accessories. No mass production, no standard molds, just one-of-a-kind designs that reflect the irregularity of the sea and the beauty of reuse.
2. Francesca Antico
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Antyquo is the jewelry brand founded by Francesca Antico, a young Italian designer who began experimenting with materials, and what started as creative exploration has grown into a collection of bold, one-of-a-kind pieces. Each Antyquo ring or earring is made from recycled materials, mainly waste glass, which Francesca finds on the street or salvages from broken objects. The glass is then preserved and transformed through a resin-coating technique she developed to enhance and protect its irregular shapes and colors.
Fine art
3. Enrica Borghi
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Enrica Borghi is an Italian artist who has spent decades turning everyday waste into something that holds attention. Her practice blends sculpture, fashion, and installation, often using plastic to explore themes like beauty, consumption, and the female body. Borghi’s work isn’t just about reuse. It’s about rethinking how we assign value to what surrounds us. She is also the founder of Associazione Culturale Accademia di Arte Plastica, a platform that connects art with environmental awareness.
4. Lady Be
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Lady Be turns discarded plastic into portraits you can’t forget. From far away, her works look like familiar faces from pop culture. But take a step closer, and you’ll see each one is made from real, used objects — buttons, bottle caps, wires, bits of packaging. Nothing is painted. Everything is repurposed.
5. Paolo Nicolai
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Paolo Nicolai brings the logic of architecture into the world of reuse. Trained as an architect, he approaches materials like a designer but thinks like an artist. His work often starts with everyday plastic waste like leftover pieces, discarded shapes and forgotten objects. His work challenges our idea of what is finished, what is beautiful, and what deserves space in our lives.
6. Francesca Pasquali
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Francesca Pasquali takes industrial materials and turns them into something almost organic. Her work often uses plastic straws, rubber, or nylon netting — the kind of stuff we see every day but never really notice. Through repetition and careful placement, she builds large-scale textures that feel alive, almost like coral reefs or strange new surfaces. Her style is physical and immersive. It’s not about telling you what to think. It’s about letting you feel something, even if that feeling is a little strange at first.
7. Dario Tironi
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Dario Tironi is an Italian artist who uses waste to reconstruct the human form — literally. What makes Tironi’s work stand out is how it balances craft and commentary. He doesn’t hide the origin of his materials. On the contrary, he makes them visible and central, turning the act of reuse into a deliberate statement. His sculptures ask: What do our waste and forgotten objects say about who we are?
8. Annarita Serra
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Originally active in advertising and design, Serra later shifted her focus to environmental art. Her background shows in the visual impact of her work. Bold, graphic, and immediately eye-catching. But beyond aesthetics, her pieces carry a strong sense of urgency. They often depict well-known icons, faces, or symbols that draw you in, only for you to realize they're made entirely from what others have thrown away.
