Plastic Bottle Dinosaur Skeleton Makes Debut in Shinjuku

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:34 JST, January 28, 2023

A giant model of a dinosaur skeleton made from about 20,000 empty plastic bottles went on display Friday in the Shinjuku Sumitomo Building in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo.

The model can be viewed until Sunday in the building’s Sankaku Hiroba all-weather atrium located on the first floor.

Sumitomo Realty & Development Co., based in Shinjuku Ward, arranged to have the model made and displayed to heighten awareness of recycling plastic bottles among office workers.

Last year, the company collected about 6 million 500-milliliter empty plastic bottles from three buildings in the ward.

Using some of the bottles, graduates of Tokyo University of the Arts constructed the model tyrannosaur skeleton, which measures four meters high and 10 meters long.

A 41-year-old homemaker who visited the site with her two children from Mitaka, Tokyo, said, “I want to continue thinking about the importance of recycling with my children.”

Though plastic bottles can be recycled if they are sorted and collected, companies do not sufficiently sort plastic bottles compared to households, according to Sumitomo Realty & Development.

An official of the company said, “We want to make this display an opportunity [for people] to think about recycling more plastic bottles in offices.”