One of the hardest things for me to accept at the recent Aussie blogger’s conference, was having to drink out of a plastic water bottle all weekend. I forgot to pack my stainless steel water bottle and I felt uncomfortable using the plastic, even though I re-used the same plastic bottle and brought it home with me, it still grated.
My lovely Scientist friend Dr Jenn Lavers, came to visit me in the Off Centre Gallery on Saturday and she gave me a bag of plastic that had been recovered from the stomachs of dead shearwater chicks. I kept the bag on the desk all day and had lots of interesting conversations about plastic pollution with a variety of people. Some people even went so far as to walk out of the gallery and hunt up their friends and partners and bring them back into the shop.
We all commented on the irony of the plastic pollution being displayed in a plastic snap lock bag. This plastic that you can see in the photo below came out of the stomachs of three of our Australian Flesh Footed Shearwaters on Lord Howe Island.
That is a lot of fucking plastic.
As a Scientist, Jenn either removes the plastic from the dead birds, or she forces the chicks to vomit up the plastic.
This plastic came from dead birds.
The plastic industry would like this Plastic Pollution to be called marine debris as that sounds nicer.
I want you all to remember that when the words marine debris are used, it really is Plastic Pollution and we can’t just gloss over this tragedy that is happening right under our own noses.
The level of micro plastic in the worlds oceans out numbers plankton by a staggering 6-1
Six to fucking one.
Because plastic is a resin it attracts all the toxins in our oceans to itself and becomes a deadly poison pill, chocker block full of DDT and every other chemical nasty that you can possibly imagine. This deadly poison pill is being ingested at the foundation level of the food chain and ultimately is poisoning all the creatures that live in the ocean.
I could dig up miles and miles of data for you and pepper it all through this post but that would take the rest of the day.
These couple of links are pretty interesting and will send you off on any number of directions.
The Plastic pollution is a global problem and we will never remove all this pollution from our oceans but we can certainly stop more going in.
Chris Jordan has done a wonderful job of raising awareness of the enormity of the plastic pollution in the pacific gyre and the plight of the albatross that breed on the Midway Atolls.
I want to concentrate on the plastic pollution that is a bit closer to home.
If you drive along the highway and notice the plastic on the side of the road and then you think that there is a pretty good chance of that plastic going into the ocean there is a real risk of feeling overwhelmed.
So just remember that from little things big things grow and each of us has enormous influence within our own circle of family and friends, colleagues, school associates, etc etc.
I have started to do what I can do within my sphere of influence by writing out my thoughts on this blog and by making some more “dead bird bowls”
I initially made the dead albatross bowls in response to Chris Jordan’s photos of the dead albatross chicks on Midway atoll. I then made the oiled bird bowl in response to the oil catastrophe in the gulf of Mexico.
I am now making some more bird bowls in response to the deadly bag of plastic I have at home.
Here are some photos to show you where I am at, the quality of the photos is a bit dodgy because I get so immersed in the making of the work that the photos are always an after thought. Sorry about that.
And once again just for luck, the plastic itself.
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Marine debris huh? It’s sad that not enough people care about stuff like that. After reading your post I feel like I need to do more than just make sure my kids are putting the recyclables in the right bin. Thanks Kim I think I found a service project for my son.
That is a HUGE amount of plastic! my god. :\
I’m speechless.
Crap, it’s so sad but hugely overwhelming, so hard to get people to listen and do the right thing 🙁
That’s a lot of plastic to come from only three birds.
The bowls look great.
I don’t throw plastic away by dumping it on the footpath or in gutters, I toss it in my recycle rubbish bin for collection every fortnight, along with newspapers and cardboard. Where it goes from there I really don’t know. I have heard that if the recycling stuff is contaminated by others putting the wrong things in their bins, the whole lot goes to landfill, just like regular rubbish.
That is an insane amount of plastic. I can’ t believe they are allowed to call it marine debris. The only marine aspect is the fact it ended up in the ocean.
Its amazing that you post this today, as yesterday I saw a bread tag on my bench. You know the little plastic tabs on store bread (I prefer to make my own) anyway, for some reason I just stared at it for what felt like ages.
I don’t know why but my mind straight away went to ‘a bird could choke on this” which was immediately followed by a variety of thoughts about how bad these are for the environment.
I am trying to be more environmentally friendly, but know I have a long way to go and moments like that don’t happen to me a lot.
Just saying, interesting coincidence that that happened, then you post this today. Guess its a sign I need to be more vigilant here about plastic.
There were an older couple who lived locally and made their “beer money” by recycling all the aluminium cans etc. The spouse and I used to take our beer cans around to them as we couldn’t be bothered recycling them ourselves.
One day we were at their place and the old bloke was raking all this plastic into piles and burning it.
The kerb side recycling was being dropped off at his place and he was only keeping the aluminium and glass as there wasn’t any money in recycling any of the other stuff.
It was very sad to think that all those people who were thinking they were doing the right thing by sorting out their rubbish may as well have just lit a bonfire in their own back yard.
What IS that plastic stuff anyway? Do you know what this stuff is FROM?
It is the plastic ties from helium balloons, the clips on plastic bread bags. The clippy things on fluorescent light sticks that go onto fishing rods, broken pegs (clothes pins) plastic bottle tops, the little hook things from pairs of socks, and heaps of broken bits of plastic from all sorts of every day products.
Shudder. And we wonder why we are getting ill with somany diseases.
Bowls are lookgin good. Great inspiration.
this makes me wonder about a man I saw on the side of a busy road yesterday. He was collecting cans. I thought it was for recycling and getting cash but maybe it was him doing his bit as well?
We could all do more and I like your thoughts about remembering small things and not getting overwhelmed. It’s all incredibly sad and hard to deal with.
It’s all so depressing. I religiously separate my recycling out from the general rubbish and hope for the best whilst knowing it isn’t really enough. I will have to try harder to buy less plastic but it is so difficult to avoid ;-(
Its more than shocking.
I also dont like to use plastic bottles.
Not enough is being done.
Hi everyone (and especially Kim!)
If you would like to learn more about marine debris and its impacts on our seabirds, please attend my public lecture at the Tasmanian Museum (Royal Society Room) at 6pm on Tuesday 26th April. Also, please feel free to visit my website (jenniferlavers.org)
Plastic pollution Jenn, plastic pollution.
OMG that is a lot from only 3 birds! I heard it’s not even safe to drink out of the same plastic bottle more than once because the chemicals leech into the water. That’s why we use our steel bottles with good old tap water. We’ll have to check what clean up projects are in operation around the creeks in our local area….it all goes somewhere.
Oh Kim, its 1.30am here. Now I am sitting bolt up right all enraged at this. I remember the shocking links to pictures of dead birds you made ages ago on the beach and once again I am reminded of this travisty. The human race should be ashamed.
My latest rage is for chinese lanterns oh so pretty but the birds/cattle etc that are killed from the metal remnants is disgusting. Just so that hordes of people can go ahhhhh, ooohhhh.
Just terrible. Thanks for such an informative post Kim. Sydneysiders love their plastic bottles. I have a flask and a chilled water filter at hom which is used everyday. I do not understand the phenomenon.
Mrs Woog xx
PS Need Beads! Will email you
Disposable plastic water bottles are terrible. I use them as little as possible . But this has made me think about other plastics and where they go. That photo is certainly an eye-opener
An important post for awareness! Thank you. The art is touching.
Oh Yikes, this is so Gross!
Thanks Kim, I’ve put off doing my Sunday Selections post for a few hours, instead have put a version of this post of yours on my blog!
Hey be careful re-using those plastic water bottles. It’s been reported they can do you great harm by re-using!
You’re a wise, wonderful, woman 😉
is this who I was listening to on abc radio the other day? Did she do an interview, it was fascinating if it was her.
Plastics start as nurdles (pre-production plastic) and sadly, they end up in our oceans in that form. Check out this video to know more about nurdles. http://youtu.be/57_KdKrJKeM
Thanks for that link, cheers Kim