A Moroccan transforms plastic bottle caps into art paintings

Sana Al-Quwaiti-Rabat

It was just an advertisement for many, in which an environmental institution warns of a day when people will hunt plastic bottles from the seas instead of fish, but Moroccan Youssef Genno picked up the message with much energy, enthusiasm and a sure desire to achieve.

And this young man of thirty decided to recycle the plastic materials by converting the rubber wheels and chairs and tables to decorate the roof of his house. Then he soon turned his passion to rotate the plastic bottles and their covers (seals) and made paintings and artwork from them.

Fishing days
Every morning, he leaves his home to start a new toil, where he works as an observer in a cleaning company, hunts plastic bottles from landfills and from the streets, then carries his precious catch to his home in a popular neighborhood in Rabat.

He tells Al-Jazeera Net that he collected - at first - about ten thousand plastic sheets, cleaned and classified them according to their sizes and colors, and then gave her another life after he made boards on the walls and floors and various handicrafts.

Inspired by Moroccan mosaics, he is, in addition to being a reciter and reciter of the Qur’an, working a period of his life in installing wall tiles.

He does not hide the difficulties he faces in finding the different colors and sizes of the covers, as it requires him to flip the waste and search between the residues of houses, and despite the people's looks at him while he is involved in the search, this does not deter him from proceeding to achieve his goal, his slogan in his journey "who knows what he meant It was found. "

Passion and accomplishment
It is a passion that Yusuf has become a hobby that fills his spare time and helps him to develop his taste and artistic passion. After the end of the work day, he brushes the ground around and around his children, puts before him different colors of plastic sheeting and simple tools that he needs at work, and then he starts implementing the ideas that his wild imagination was serious about.

He puts colored blankets on one side of the other, makes consistent geometrical shapes, attaches them to a special glue, and then a plastic thread, which his children follow with great care and attention, and they race to provide assistance whenever he requests.

This man made from plastic bottles chairs, tables and colorful decorations, and from the covers are mosaic paintings, Quranic verses, frames, tissue boxes, etc. He offers his friends and acquaintances his creations from time to time, urging them to evaluate what his hands have made, as their notes - as he says - help him to develop what he is doing, and open other doors for creativity and production in front of him.

With a clear spontaneity, he says, "After the completion of each painting or work I am overwhelmed with great comfort." This is due to his feeling of accomplishment, as he puts it, from nothing, making various art forms, transforming what people dispensed with into works despite their simplicity, leaving in his life a luxury and giving his days joy.

The environment is a neighbor
Yusuf's work in the field of hygiene made him realize the importance of caring for the environmental environment, and therefore he is the father of four children. He is keen on forming a link between them and the environment.

Plastic pollution threatens the environment and is becoming a real danger to the world, and the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection says that approximately 350 million tons of plastic produced annually are not recycled and end up in the oceans, and a recent report by the World Wide Fund for Nature revealed that 0.57 million tons of plastic is thrown Annually in Mediterranean waters, the equivalent of 33 thousand and eight hundred plastic bottles per minute.

After his stock of plastic sheeting is finished, Youssef dismantles some of the paintings and handicrafts, then re-installs new shapes and paintings with other colors and patterns, decorating the land or walls, so they look like authentic mosaics and decorations that give their colors and coordination a beautiful place.