Jeddah: A school principal in Jeddah, Khulood Al-Fadli, has entered the Guinness World Records. By creating the world’s largest Mural using only plastic water bottle caps.
The Principal at Green Leaves Playgroup used 350,000 plastic bottle caps to break last year’s record by making a 250-square-meter map of the world. The previous record was held by Caroline Chaptini, who had created a 196.94-square- meter crescent in Miziara, Lebanon.
“I feel beyond the moon. I really felt my work had paid off,” Al-Fadli told Arab News.
“The image doesn’t matter as the size determines if I’m breaking a record and Guinness World Records had so many requirements to break a record or set a new record,” she said in reply to a question.
“I went through difficult days of the wind blowing all my water caps away, which delayed the project for a week. But with determination, consistency, and with the help of my volunteers and most of all my family and husband. I continued my work and never gave up,” she added.
The project has brought to attention three events; World Environment Day, recycling plastic, and World Oceans Day. Al-Fadli feels that all three world days met Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and its sustainable goals.
With the help of her students, family, and friends, and a large number of bottle cap donors, “within 40 days of work, the news kept spreading and people from all over Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and Taif came to donate.”
She said that the donors had been eager to see the outcome.
“They were amazed by how lovely and huge the map is; they promised to save plastics and reuse them or donate them to me for the sake of the Earth.”
Al-Fadli said recycling waste material into Art has been a very fulfilling experience. That she had always had an attraction for maps as a child.
