Plastic Project: 12/21/12 to 12/27/12. 52nd and Co

This project grew out of a feeling of helplessness and a need to take action. I decided to collect the plastic and only the plastic (not the metal,glass,cloth,wood, cigarette butts etc), that I found on the beach directly in front of our apartment building. My thoughts were that the quantity would diminish day by day, that people would engage me and inquire about what I was doing and that much of the garbage would be left by the people frequenting the beach. None of this proved to be true. This project does not reflect poorly on the City of Miami Beach, they do a good job here. The beach is cleaned each morning and the trash bins emptied.

First day of collection. I develop a system for sorting and the items themselves set up the categories: bottle caps, straws, cutlery and knots appear immediately. I am somewhat surprised by the toothbrushes and in general the quantity and variety of detritus. It is clear from the first day that this plastic is mainly washed up onto the shore, entangled in the seaweed and bobbing on the foam. 

These are some examples of the transformative power the sea has in reshaping our garbage. Every image you see is 100% plastic.

A word about plastic straws. Did you know they come in a myriad of different shapes, sizes and materials? When they decompose they turn into long fibers. Two are represented here as archetypes of their species. A word about styrofoam, a most insidious material. It assumes many guises on it's path to decomposition. It resembles coral at times and gets so gossamer thin it floats on the wind. I found it in all its forms including lots of it bearing marks of having been burned.

Yes, there is beauty here. It is intriguing, the way the natural world embraces and transforms these everyday items into objects of character. This project, however, is not about the beauty of the plastic, nor the need or compulsion to collect, arrange and categorize, although traces of all of this are present. It is about each of us, in our own way and in our own world addressing our invasion of our eco-systems.

Moon is getting full and the tides are also full of plastic. The artifacts from today (12/24/12), the 25th and the 26th are included in various other albums. The last two photos are of plastic I just threw away. Everyday there was some of that.

Christmas Day. This was the bag I used and filled each day. The best thing about this day was the curiosity of the other people on the beach, one even began to collect his own plastic after speaking to me. That is the goal, that the circle of awareness expands to include all of us. Looking for plastic is like looking for shells - at first you don't notice them and then you can see only that.

You worry about the small fragments, so well integrated into the environment, so small you can not pick them up easily. 

This is a collection of caps from days 4,5 and 6. The profusion of caps is unending which makes one wonder - where are all the bottles? Have they already decomposed into tiny fragments and been ingested into our food and into us? The caps are good floaters; all shapes and sizes are represented.  

As with any artifact there is a certain amount of mystery and wonder. Who were these merry picnickers who so blithely tossed their wares? Was it an accident - did the wind pick up and blow it off the bow, did the little child playing with the spoon in the waves forget? Does it matter? The sheer number of forks and spoons was astounding. My last question, why can we not bring home and wash what we use? Convenience is another devil whose disguise is wearing thin.

This is a small sampling of the many knotted items I found. Some just remnants of the bags they once bound. Do we think that if we knot it closed it will somehow be OK? That our act of careless disposal is redeemed by the secure closure? The cords, ropes, fishing line, all knotted, is it a sign of our anxiety and dis-ease?

As the project progressed it became clear that one of my problems was that most of the plastic could not be recycled. It has lost it's identity, so to speak. I disposed of it as best as I could, separating the containers, bags and caps. Much of it I ended up just throwing away. Sadly I often used other plastic bags to dispose of it.

The sameness of the debris, bottle caps, toothbrushes, cutlery, fragments of all sorts of bags, miniscule pieces, shoes, rope, was surprising. Leave the shells and pick up the plastic. Beautiful as it may become it remains, nevertheless, garbage.