We all become our waste
Photoshoot I did a little while ago with a beautiful friend of mine. I collected plastic bottles, aluminum cans, plastic wraps, bottle caps and other packaging waste, and made a mermaid tail out of them. The pictures tell a story of a mermaid who’s been a victim of our ocean pollutants, as she lives and eats from the ocean. As the plastic in the ocean grew, she washed to the shore. Just like the mermaid – we also slowly become our waste – as – we are our oceans.
At the moment it has been calculatef that there is between 19-23 million tonnes of plastic entering our oceans and watersystems each year. This includes plastic packaging waste, single usable items, fishibg nets, hunderds of thousands of tonnes of microplastic, and more.
Whilst we can change our consuming habits and simply put, consume less, we can also change our mindset to seek alternative packaging and material options. Also, remembering to reuse and recycle as much as possible will help to prevent the huge issue we are facing.
Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change. Plastic doesn’t break down effectively, neither it biogrades, therefore dissolving tonnes of chemicals and toxins into our waters. The most directly it affects our marine life, causing deaths to many – already vulnerable species. Wildlife has been found getting caught on fishing nets, packaging and other trash. As microplastics enter the animals from the water they live in, or through their food ( sadly often enough also larger pieces of debris has been found inside species) it stays inside the animals releasing toxins, as animal body can’t digest plastics. And as humans then go and eat their fish and seafood plate… yeh, there is also plastic found in us!
We can all make small changes that help the sea creatures swim happily again.
You can also donate and support projects that are working for finding solutions to the issue, and keeping us informed. Couple of my favorite organisation’s are The ocean clean up project
And SeaLegacy, worth to check them out!
That’s it for the rant this time, Please send me any feedback regarding the photos
Big thank you to my model Ruby, the real life mermaid.
JanLinCreative 