New York — Everyone turns to look at a June bride, but it's not often one turns up at a plastics and medical devices trade show. So Bella was turning even more heads than the average bride at the MD&M East trade show in New York, June 14-16.
“Bella the Bride” is a wedding-gown-sculpture-sustainability-message project by Beacon Converters Inc. and DuPont Co.'s Protection Solutions, made entirely out of discarded Tyvek medical packaging and designed by Nancy Judd, an artist and environmental educator who creates couture fashion from trash.
Aimed at getting health care companies to say “I do” to material recovery and sustainability, and named for the wife of Beacon founder William Francis Daly, Bella's train is covered with more than 400 flowers, also made from discarded Tyvek, a high density polyethylene material that is a sterile barrier protection used for medical devices and supplies and in protective suits for health care workers.
The flowers were handmade by health care industry professionals from hospitals, manufacturers and educational institutions around the United States, the companies said.
New Jersey-based Beacon, a manufacturer of flexible sterilization packaging systems in medical grade materials, and DuPont have Bella out on tour for the rest of 2016 before she heads to Atlanta to be displayed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2017.