Wood Collections: from COP26 exhibition stands to potato planters at Hillhead High School

Back in early May, the technology teacher of Hillhead High School came in looking for something for his P7 students get learning how to grow their own potatoes.

Using a little bit of ingenious thinking, Mr McMahon settled on some large planters originally made for the public areas at COP26, along with some long, thin ply wood boxes to help with building their outdoor space. Who knew this story could become such a great example of the circular economy in practice!

Here we have the wood in the middle of its journey, just delivered to the school ready for its transformation.

The large box planters from inside the Green Zone were kindly returned to us after COP26, and the long thin boxes came to us via Event Cycle, an organisation helping to bring circular economy practices to the events industry. These long ply wood boxes were collected from stage sets of the keynote & meeting rooms in the Blue Zone. So when Mr McMahon was in need of an affordable and sustainable solution for his P7 induction week project we were happy to be of service!

First step was to break down the large planters into 4 smaller ones…

Mr McMahon was prepared, and he purchased extra wood to make bases for each of the planters. Lots of pairs of hands were drafted in to help out during this stage!

Next step was giving them a lick of paint…

S1 and S3 were just some of the students helping out at this stage to help with painting.

And here we have them all finished and ready to be lined.

Some of them were even destined to be used for display boxes for stands at their Summer Fayre!

Once painted and dried, they had to wait for a dry day to get planting them out, which wasn’t the easiest considering the current Glasgow weather…

We’re a big fan of the colour scheme, and even the additional stencils identifying each of the classes.

And a few weeks later, here they are finally growing into some very special potatoes.

These pieces of timber have been on quite a journey around town, but we’re so pleased we were able to help in prolonging their life a little longer! It’s what we do best here at Glasgow Wood.

Stay tuned on our Twitter to see how the students at Hillhead High School are getting on!

And do you think you can take on the challenge of upcycling some more of our COP26 donations?

We’ve had these frames in the Bay F timber yard for some months now, and we’re looking to get them to a new home. What would you make from them?

Check them out in our Gumtree listing, along with a selection of other reclaimed, one-off pieces on our Gumtree profile.

Or come pop in to the Bay F timber yard to see what other reclaimed treasures we have. What’s your next upcycle project going to be? Remember to tag us on social media, or send your projects to us at marketing@glasgowwood.org.uk.