To highlight the waste material from discarded electronic parts, artist Zayd Menk is building a small-scale model of London's Westminster area solely out of reclaimed technology from HPE's Technology Renewal Center.

Artist Zayd Menk believes that in a perfect world, there’d be no waste. In his hometown of Harare, Zimbabwe, Zayd has witnessed firsthand the hazards created by disposed electronics.

Motivated by his belief in a circular economy—one in which used items are transformed into something new and useful rather than thrown away—he creates intricate art from found objects.

When he was 17 years old, for a school project, he spent three months building a 165- by 80-centimeter model of Midtown Manhattan out of electronic parts.

Now 18, Zayd wants to study art at university in London. When he visited there a few months ago, HPE provided him with reclaimed technology from its Technology Renewal Center in Erskine, UK to build a small-scale model of London’s Westminster area solely out of e-waste. The project took approximately 97 hours to build. It features a few of the most prominent city structures, including Big Ben, Parliament, the London Aquarium, and Westminster Bridge.

Zayd hopes his artwork can play an important role in educating people about sustainability: "In the future, if companies embrace the idea of the circular economy, e-waste might not be an issue and my artwork might be seen as a sort of weird historical artifact from a time when we didn't know any better."

Watch the video to see the city scale model take shape.

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