Red Recycling

The Red Telephone Box has become part of British culture and is recognized by many who visit and live here. However they’re not really being used anymore. Mobile phones have pretty much taken over, not many don’t carry one nowadays. Therefore the telephone boxes, not only in Britain, but across the globe, are slowly being destroyed or in some cases, recycled…

The first I heard about recycling Telephone boxes, was this, the cash machine. I thought it was an excellent idea, that could be implemented across large cities, towns and villages. Everyone needs money and a lot of people would benefit from cash machines around.

Then came the art way of looking at it, the Fish Tank. Here an ordinary phone booth was transformed into an aquarium by artists Benoit Deseille and Benedetto Bufalino as part of the Lyon Light Festival in France. I like this, but feel it would only be temporary. Banksy also created a piece where a telephone box had be folded and pick-axed it as if it were living and now dead. The red paint then acted as blood and was dripping from the box. I feel more telephone boxes should be used for purpose rather than art, as theres only so much you can appreciate art, compared to something you may need.

Something people need? Some people have transformed them into libraries. Offering books to villages, that can use over and over again without the need to build extra buildings. May be small, but doesn’t need to be big for a village. In other cases people have turned them into advertisements for pubs and events, into plants pots that brighten up the modern atmosphere, into showers by seasides and lakes to act on a cleaning basis after swimming, into toilets supplying people with a place to visit if they are too desperate to wait, and into car charging booth to top up your electric cars with power.

Personally I think the booths should be reused as items we need more. Mobile phones will be around for a bit longer so maybe transforming the unused telephone boxes into toilets, cash machines, showers, toilets, libraries, plants, art exhibits, charging booths, advertisements, and maybe even internet information booths, bins, benches, and small kiosks; will be a good thing for the future.