I’ve been meaning to link to this for awhile, but since it’s Earth Day, there’s no better time than the now (not now, but right now). My dad has a wicked photographic essay called Where Has All The Plastic Gone? The photographs feature trash found at the beach here in Mexico. Trash is a common sight on the beaches and along the roads, so much so that it begins to become invisible to the people that live here. The essay feels like a visual archaelogical survey, recorded for whoever might inhabit earth, long after we’re gone and all that’s left are bits of oddly shaped, brightly colored plastic.
flickr set | fullscreen slideshow
On a similar tangent: there’s been an awful lot of talk about plastic building up in the environment and being around forever. My hope is that long after we’re gone (assumably the plastic by-products killed us off), maybe there’s some kind of bacteria that somehow evolves or makes it to earth aboard some large meteor and uses the plastic (and toxic chemicals it amasses), as a food source. Similar to the way bacteria feed off the toxic chemicals emitted from deep-ocean vents. The dinosaurs gave us oil to drive our vehicles, maybe our gift to future inhabitants is, well, food. Or more likely we’ll just decompose and become oil for future inhabitants’ automobile equivalents.
Just a thought.
Yes, plastic beaches - a topic that never fails to send me me off on a rant … you should check out the book and site of Andy Hughes … PS love yr Dad’s darkroom!!!
Cheers,
BB