Award-winning Shopping Trolley Art

In 2006, Anglian Water commissioned the world’s first river wildlife sculptures made entirely from shopping trolleys.10 sculptures were created in total.

World-renowned artist Ptolemy Elrington made the sculptures from discarded shopping trolleys pulled out of rivers by RiverCare volunteers.

A media campaign was launched using the sculptures with the aim of communicating the details of the project to local communities, encouraging them to join the project; ‘adopt’ a stretch of river and set up their own group.

The Trolley Art campaign yielded over 100 media hits across regional and national print, radio and television media; and won a number of awards, as illustrated below:

To date, over a dozen new RiverCare groups have been established on the back of the interest generated.