The new Weee man sculpture in London - making people think about electronic waste. Photograph: Getty Images
Meet Weee man, a 23ft high sculpture that was unveiled outside London's city hall on the south bank today.
Weee stands for "waste electrical and electronic equipment" and the sculpture has been created to illustrate the total amount of electronic waste that an average person in the UK is likely to create in their lifetime.
Five fridges, 35 mobile phones, five sandwich toasters, and four lawnmowers have been patched together to create the three tonne sculpture by Paul Bonomini. The teeth are made from computer mice, the spine is from an old washing machine, and the neck is made of vacuum cleaner tubes.
The London mayor, Ken Livingstone, said that the sculpture "works so well because it provokes us to realise how much electrical and electronic waste we all create".
Project director Rob Holdway said the average UK householder owned 25 electrical and electronic appliances which amounted to a total across the country of 15bn appliances. Householders and businesses threw away at least 1m tonnes of Weee every year, he said, with 90% ending up as landfill. And sites for landfill are running out.
Weee Man has been created by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and IT firm Canon Europe. He will be standing guard outside city hall until 27 May before heading to the Eden Project in Cornwall for the summer.
