Blue Mountains was awarded first prize in the Community 3D category, at the Regional Waste To Art Community Exhibition in Oberon recently.
The exhibition featured about 120 artworks, from 14 councils - all made from everyday rubbish.
The artwork is coming to the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre from September 7.
Mayor Mark Greenhill said the winning Blue Mountains artwork was a collaborative community art project made by weaving together discarded fabric and soft plastics to make a powerful owl's nest. More than 100 Blue Mountains residents contributed by weaving the art work over the April school holidays.
Waste to Art is an initiative of NetWaste, a voluntary local government waste network with 28 member councils across regional NSW.
"The art aims to encourage the whole community to rethink their own waste and promote a low waste lifestyle," Cr Greenhill said.
"By taking action to reduce, reuse and repair over buying new, it saves resources like water and energy that go into manufacturing new items and sends less waste to landfill," Cr Greenhill said.
Mayor Greenhill said collective efforts do make a difference and also help threatened species like the Powerful Owl, which is found across the Blue Mountains in old growth forests.
Australians buy 27 kilograms of new clothes annually and more than 20 kilograms ends up in garbage bins each year.
"It was a lot of fun turning waste material into art," said artist Carolyn Dance from Branching Out Designs, Hazelbrook who co-ordinated the community art work.
"We mostly weave with natural fibres so this was a real challenge [to use discarded textiles, soft plastics and package strapping]," Mrs Dance said.
The powerful owl is a threatened species in the Mountains, and their hollows can take more than 100 years to form.
The winner of the Waste to Art Facebook competition was Eliana Echeverria, from Springwood. Eliana, who moved to the Blue Mountains in 2018, won an iPad mini for her pledge to "grow my favourite herbs and salad greens".
Springwood's Margaret Hickey also won a ten pass visit to the Springwood Aquatic & Fitness Centre and Blaxland's Cath Gordon won a Blue Mountains Theatre and Hub gift voucher.
