Our reliance on plastic has caused much distressed to the Earth, particularly the ocean. Well, what can we say? This alarming environment issue is not just about plastics; it is also about how we shitty humans just love dropping trash where they do not belongs. But we are not here about the issue of littering. That’s another story for another day. We are here for this wonderful plastic waste awareness campaign called Strawpocalypse happened recently.
In one of his conservation and social impact projects, Canadian artist/photographer Benjamin Von Wong with the help of Zero Waste Saigon and Starbucks Vietnam, created a powerful sculpture out of used straws. These straws were collected from around Vietnam, along with contribution by Starbucks Vietnam’s patrons. All told, a total of 168,037 straws where collected and used to create the parting waves sculpture that was installed at Estella Place, Ho Chi Minh City.
Running up to the installation, Zero Waste Saigon devoted six months, mobilizing countless volunteers, to collect the used straws which were then washed and sorted. The installation, called “The Parting of the Plastic Sea” was designed by Von Wong with Escape Room Designer Stefan Suknjaja from Serbia and San Francisco-based technical builder Nick Moser. The impressive sculpture is composed of a frame and covered with waste plastic boards with the used straws stuck to them.
Prior to putting up the straws, a series of LED lights was designed to bring the plastic waves to live. The result was very impressive, well, at least it was on photo. Though straws are small part of the larger plastic problem faced by the modern world, the intention of the sculpture is not to show how much straws can save the environment from this unnecessary, man-made distress. It is to show how tiny little things like this can contribute to a bigger problem.
Well, good thing that back in those days they don’t have this plastic trash problem, or else Moses would be parting a plastic sea like this instead. Just saying… Strawpocalypse was accorded as the Largest Drinking Straw Sculpture by Guinness World Records in February 2019. It is possibly the most powerful plastic trash sculpture since the 5-ton plastic waste whale sculpture we saw last year. You can learn more about Strawpocalypse: Largest Straw Sculpture, AKA The Parting of the Plastic Sea, in the video below and also over at Strawpocalypse official website.
All images courtesy of Strawpocalypse/Von Wong.
Source: YouTube (Guinness World Records).
