“Trash Designer – Artistic Profession of the Future” is an Erasmus+ KA210-VET Small-scale Partnership implemented from 1 April 2024 to 30 September 2025 with a total grant of EUR 60,000. The project was coordinated by Miejska Strefa Kultury w Łodzi (Poland) and delivered in partnership with organisations from Spain, Italy, and Romania, forming a compact but highly practice-oriented European cooperation network focused on innovation in vocational art education.

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Why the project was created

The project was designed in response to a clear and increasingly urgent gap in vocational art education: while upcycling and “trash design” are widely discussed and visible in contemporary culture, many art schools still lack structured content and teaching resources related to ecological materials, circular economy principles, and designing with secondary resources. At the same time, students expect practical competences linked to emerging green professions and contemporary creative industries, while teachers need professional training to confidently introduce these topics into their classes. Partners identified similar systemic challenges in each country and a shared demand for educational innovation within VET.

By addressing this gap, the partnership aimed to reposition trash design not only as a “trend,” but as a coherent, future-oriented professional pathway connected to the green transition and the evolving labour market. The project responds directly to Erasmus+ priorities related to environment and the fight against climate change, and to increasing the attractiveness and relevance of VET through innovation and new learning content.

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What the partnership wanted to achieve

The core ambition was to introduce trash design as an innovative element of vocational art education and to better prepare both learners and educators for the challenges of today’s creative sector. The project sought to:

• enhance young people’s understanding of sustainable design, circular economy thinking, and the creative use of secondary materials;

• promote the profession of the “trash designer” as a future-oriented specialization with growing relevance in creative industries;

• strengthen teachers’ competences through international learning and national-level cascade trainings;

• create high-quality educational resources that can be used long after the project ends;

• encourage school leadership and decision-makers to formally introduce new modules connected to sustainable and ecological design.

From the outset, the project was conceived not as a one-off campaign, but as a practical foundation for long-term curriculum integration—supporting both the strategic “why” and the operational “how” of implementing trash design in VET art schools.

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Who the project is for

During the needs analysis and design stage, the partnership identified three key target groups:

1. Students of secondary-level vocational art schools, especially those interested in design, applied arts, and contemporary creative careers;

2. Teachers of design-related and artistic subjects in VET schools, who need competences, methods, and teaching materials to deliver sustainability-oriented content;

3. School management and decision-makers responsible for curricula, learning pathways, and the strategic development of educational offers.

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How the project worked: a multi-level approach

To achieve sustainable impact, the partnership implemented a multi-level package of activities that connected international expertise, national implementation, and school-level dissemination.

The project began with structured coordination and management processes, including partner agreements, shared planning, risk analysis, and regular online coordination meetings to ensure quality, coherence, and timely delivery.

An international kick-off meeting took place in Łódź (Poland) in July 2024, enabling partners to align roles, confirm methods, and establish shared standards for implementation. The cooperation model was then expanded through an international training hosted in Spain in October 2024, where partner staff explored techniques for working with secondary materials, examples of circular design, and teaching approaches suited to vocational art education. In addition to skill development, the training produced educational and promotional materials such as recorded fragments and interviews to support dissemination and learning A key element of the project methodology was the train-the-trainer (cascade) model. After the international training, national teams delivered cascade trainings in their countries in local languages, ensuring that expertise was not limited to a small group of participants but multiplied across a wider educational community.

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What was delivered: key outputs and educational activities

The project produced two major publications that form a long-term educational foundation:

• “Trash Designer Handbook”: a comprehensive, multilingual publication that goes beyond a promotional brochure and functions as a structured educational resource. It was significantly expanded beyond the initial plan and reached 73 pages, covering trash design and circular economy context, historical perspectives on reuse, distinctions between recycling/upcycling/trash design, required competences, sector applications, case studies, and educational guidance. The handbook is available in five languages (EN, PL, IT, ES, RO) in PDF format on the project website and was also printed in limited copies for use during seminars and meetings with stakeholders.

• Recommendations for art schools: an expanded set of guidance materials supporting schools in integrating trash design into curricula and learning pathways, translating the project concept into implementable institutional steps.

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Alongside the publications, the partnership implemented a sequence of learning and dissemination activities in four countries:

• International training for partner staff: 14 staff members were trained (above the planned number), and evaluation showed strong competence growth.

• Cascade trainings for teachers: 84 VET art teachers took part in national trainings, strengthening their ability to implement trash design locally and act as “ambassadors” of the topic.

• Thematic seminars for schools and stakeholders: more than 150 representatives of educational institutions participated in seminars focused on the concept, professional context, and practical pathways for introducing trash design into VET education.

• Lectures on the profession for students: 148 students attended sessions presenting trash design as a career path and showing how ecological creativity can connect with real professional opportunities.

The project concluded with a final partner meeting in Italy in September 2025, dedicated to evaluation, consolidation of outputs, and planning future cooperation steps to keep the network active beyond the funded period.

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Results and added value

The project achieved its goals and, in several areas, exceeded original expectations. Both publications were expanded beyond the planned scope, making them stronger educational tools rather than short promotional materials. The number of trained staff and teachers was higher than initially planned, and evaluations indicated a high level of satisfaction and a significant increase in competences—supporting the project’s intention to create real capacity for long-term educational change.

Importantly, the partnership generated not only learning materials, but also a practical cooperation framework and a shared understanding of how trash design is perceived in different national contexts—insights that informed the recommendations and strengthened the long-term relevance of the outputs.

 

A foundation for long-term change

“Trash Designer – Artistic Profession of the Future” builds bridges between sustainability, creativity, and vocational education. By combining structured capacity-building for teachers, inspirational and career-oriented learning for students, and concrete implementation support for schools, the project delivers a credible pathway for integrating circular design competences into VET art education across Europe.