As I was walking around the Farm Progress Show, I was able to see some interesting demonstrations.

I was walking through all the mud and people, and then I stopped when I saw this man burning something in barrel. Come to find out, this man was burning metal. I walked up during the middle of the demonstration but I found it very interesting! The man’s name is David Williamson, from Ogden, IA and he calls himself a collaborating artist. Mr. Williamson is apart of the program Project Aware.

Project Aware is set up to clean the Iowa Rivers. Every year, two hundred plus people get together, grab their canoes, and pick up junk. You wouldn’t believe how much junk can collect over time. Trash has been piling up for over the past 100 years and Mr. Williamson is making an effort to clean it up. Project Aware has been in place for the past four years. The location changes every year, it has been everywhere in Iowa from the Maquoketa River, Des Moines River, English River, Sue River, and the Iowa River.

This year, they met during the third week in June and the two hundred plus group of men and women worked their hearts out. They picked up twenty-four tons of JUNK! Out of that twenty-four tons, five tons of that was tires and thirty-five percent of the junk was able to be recycled.

Not only do they recycle the junk, Mr. Williamson enjoys making sculptures. Making something so beautiful out of something so ugly can be very rewarding! Here at the Farm Progress Show, he has two sculptures on display, as you can see in the picture. The one is built up from a tire rim into a tear drop and the other is a gigantic ore. The last crew he had working for him wanted to make an ore for all the hard work they had done throughout the last week.

The work that the crews do is incredible and remarkable. Mr. Williamson’s goals are to make Iowa cleaner, environmental friendly, and making something like trash so useless, something useful! For information and results you can to go the DNR Website.

Coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by Monsanto: