Tiny Hands, Big Futures: How Kids Are Turning Trash Into Treasure at the Circular Design Hub.

Photos By Linda Catalano & Felix Toohey

Over two crisp winter mornings during the recent school holidays, something unexpected happened inside an old warehouse now known as the Circular Design Collective. Over 50 kids, eyes wide with delight, were not playing with toys — they were making them. From trash.

I witnessed what can only be described as joyful chaos. These were not just kids’ craft workshops. It was hands-on, brain-on, community-powered circular thinking in action.

Supported by FB IDEAs as part of the Plastic Free July programming at the Circular Design Collective, these workshops by Innovators in Residence Precious Plastic Melbourne give young people access to professional-grade tools, salvaged materials, and most importantly permission to imagine. The results are as inventive as they are sustainable. 

It’s clear the kids loved the gear, the workbenches, the drills, the freedom to use “real” equipment in a space that trusts them to be smart and safe. This isn’t a classroom. It’s a laboratory of hope. And they’re not being told what to make. They’re asked: “What problem do you want to solve? What story do you want to tell?”

The idea is simple: if we want to build a sustainable future, we need to make it playful and put tools in the hands of the next generation now. Let them be designers, engineers, and environmentalists not in the future, but today.

There’s something revolutionary happening here. It’s small-scale, it’s DIY, and it’s powered by a love of community and a deep belief that change can be made with drills, offcuts and a bit of glitter.

In a world overwhelmed by waste, the Circular Design Collective and it;s Innovators in Residence is reminding us that the future isn't something we throw away - it's something we build, together.