These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September 2009 on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.
To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.
~Chris Jordan, October 2009
Chris' creative work on trash and the 21st century has been eye opening. I've followed it now for a couple of years. He has enlightened my perspective on the impact the consumptive culture in which we live is having on our world and its animals.
I didn't realize that our plastic is in fact an oil-based product. In fact, last summer I read a post in which the writer concluded that a single bottled water should be seen as two-thirds water and one-third oil, because that's how much oil is required to manufacture the plastic and transport it to market.
The, I came across this TED presentation.
Leave a comment