From scrap to sculpture: Sahibganj artist gives 1000 tonnes of waste a second life

Sahibganj: A child standing in front of an installation made of twisted metal and discarded objects asked artist Amrit Prakash Sah a question he hasn’t forgotten: “Is this made from waste? Then how is it so beautiful?”For the Sahibganj-based artist, the question sums up his work — collecting materials that have lost their everyday purpose and turning them into public art.

Amrit’s practice has now found a larger canvas with the upcoming Waste to Wonder Park in Sahibganj. The park, planned across 22,000 square feet near Ganga Vihar Park on Stadium Road, is expected to use over 1,000 tonnes of waste material, according to a February 2025 report.

The materials include automobile waste, fans, iron sheets, nuts and bolts, old bicycles and motorcycles, broken tiles and crockery, plastic bottles, stoves and gas cylinders. The local municipal council is expected to contribute about 200 tonnes, with some scrap to be recovered from the Ganga.

The park will feature sculptures made from scrap, along with plantation, children’s play equipment and installations designed to spark scientific curiosity. The aim is to encourage recycling and reduce dependence on plastic.Amrit’s work is part of a growing national push where waste-to-art has been included in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ Swachh Survekshan framework.

The artist, who works with old tins, plastic, wood and industrial scrap, has also created public art beyond waste installations. In 2025, he created an eight-foot sculpture for the CBSE Regional Office in Patna based on the guru-shishya tradition, depicting the teacher as a tree and the student as its shade.

For Amrit, the real success is not in the scale, but in changing perception — making people pause before calling something useless.