We all know what a paper tiger is, and many a child has played with a plastic tiger toy. With fur of recycled post-consumer plastic milk bottles, the fierce yet friendly-looking orange and black striped beast catching passengers’ eye at London’s St. Pancras rail station for three weeks in March is something quite apart. Not advertising for a zoo, the St. Pancras tiger, created by artist Faith Bebbington for the lavish “Tiger Tracks” exhibition financed in part by waste management company Veolia Environmental Services UK (www.veoliaenvironmentalservices.co.uk) is attempting to catalyse Britons’ love for animals to encourage responsible waste treatment.

The life-size critter made of more than 300 bottles stands on 58,230 recycled cans. Quoting poet William Blake’s famous line “Tiger, tiger burning bright,” conservationists are flashing the message that the tiger’s’ light is being dimmed by humans’ wasteful behaviour.

The exhibition’s sponsors may be touching a nerve. Although, according to the British Plastics Federation, the UK recycled a record 17,000 t of plastics in 2011 – see Plasteurope.com of 01.02.2013 – figures published by PlasticsEurope in its “Plastics - the Facts 2012” brochure show the country ranking 23rd of 29 European countries in recovery rates the same year.