Rasta Man, a True Pot Head, is very comfortable sitting in the Ace Gallery at Ace Insurance Company in Hamilton. One would never know he travelled thousands of miles to find himself such comfortable digs.

Rasta Man, by Alison Copeland, is a fixture in a trash art exhibition called, Protect the Earth, in the Ace Gallery this month to celebrate Earth Day on April 22. The exhibition has been organised by environmental charity Keep Bermuda Beautiful.

KBB director Ann Hyde said Rasta Man, and all the other art pieces in the exhibition, are made from rubbish washed up on Bermuda’s beaches. Rasta Man’s head is a Brazilian octopus pot that had to float at least 3,000 miles in the Gulf Stream to find itself on Bermuda’s shores.

“We’ve collected over 200 of these pots,” said Ms Hyde. “Octopus is quite a delicacy in some countries like Brazil.”

The art work in the show made from everything from broken plastic to old tooth brushes, paint brushes, pens, flip flops and plastic bottles

was made by a variety of people including students, professional artists and environmentalists.

One photography by Bryden Pedro shows the remains of a camp fire circled by broken glass half buried on the beach while a tender young foot hovers nearby.

A poster reads “Don’t Let Our Island become a dump”.

One art piece shows a collection of plastics that has clearly been gnawed on by creatures great and small.

“It is very impacting to see all these bite marks,” said Ms Hyde. “Dr Mark Outerbridge has been able to identify some of the bite marks. Some of the bites are from turtles, while others are from birds and fish.”

Many sea creatures die after their stomachs become loaded down with indigestible and toxic plastics that are unfortunately abundant in the ocean.

“It is real evidence of what is happening out there,” said Ms Hyde. “Plastic floats. Trash travels. In Bermuda we are never more than a half mile to the sea. That goes to say that our whole island is a marine environment. Wherever you drop litter on the land, it is bound to go to the ocean. Most of the trash that washes up on our beaches is not ours, but ours probably ends up somewhere in Africa.”

Ms Hyde has created several of the pieces in the exhibition including a large lion fish.

“I got a call from the Ocean Support Foundation,” she said. “They wanted to make a lion fish sculpture for the 2012 Trash Art Show. The lady said I have a hanger and some duct tape. I said, ‘no, no let me bring some things together for you’.

The lion fish is constructed from a boat buoy marker, a stand for a fan, and an old laundry basket, among other things. All the items were collected off of Callaghan Bay in Sandys.

“The laundry basket came from Islands to the south of us,” Ms Hind said. “We can tell that because it has been repaired. Bermuda is too affluent to find this kind of evidence on a laundry basket. We find flip flops and shoes that have been repaired over and over again. Whoever had them wore a hole in the bottom.”

She hoped that during Earth Day the exhibition would help to highlight the importance of environmental awareness.

The Ace Gallery is open to the public throughout the month of April and is open between 10am and 4pm.

There will be a larger KBB trash art exhibition at the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSOA) opening August 29.