I went to Brookside a couple of weekends ago and saw a new installation. Keira Hart-Mendoza, an artist from Bethesda, Maryland, wanted to exhibit how people, and the trash they create, affect the planet. She did this by dumping 1,700 pieces of plastic into one of the water features at Brookside Gardens. This exhibit, I believe, is called 999,000 Bottles of Plastic on the Wall.
It reminded me of an article that I read. Something like 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year on top of the 150 million metric tons that are already floating around in our waterways. I don’t think we consider how we affect the world outside of our little bubble. I didn’t anyway. I mean yeah, I bring my own bags with me when I go to the grocery store, or Target, but I also go to places like Starbucks, I may have bought a bottle of Tide, Downey, or even tea on that trip to the store. All of that plastic if not properly dealt with (recycled) ends up in a landfill somewhere, but not all plastics are recyclable: Plastic bags, any plastic bottle or jug which doesn’t have numbers 1 or 2 on the bottom, and plastic shower liners and curtains, are some examples of plastic items which cannot be recycled. I discovered that a few years ago and switched from plastic liners, which I was replacing monthly, to washable fabric liners similar to the ones you see in hotels.
It’s easy I think to just live life like there are no consequences to anything we do, but that is what is destroying this planet we inhabit, killing off entire species of animals at alarming rates… So this may just be an art exhibit in a garden that only so many people will get to experience, but it is based in actual life. This is the world we are living in right now and there is no one to blame for it but ourselves. So take in this picture and consider all the plastic you consume in a day, a week, a month, a year… what will you do to help limit the amount of refuse you’re responsible for?
