Ocean Plastic Advent Calendar Raises Awareness
Local photographer Meredith Andrews has once again collected and re-purposed plastic that has washed up on the shores of Bermuda to create an interesting and thought provoking daily advent calendar series on Instagram.
This marks the second year that Ms. Andrews has utilized ocean plastics for her holiday project, which uses discarded materials such as lighters, fishing rope, bottle caps, sports equipment, flip flops, and more to count down the days until Christmas while also bringing attention to the growing issue of plastic pollution, seen in Bermuda and coastal regions across the globe.
Ms Andrews “1″, made from lighters, which she posted noting that “every day approximately 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into our oceans.”
Ms. Andrews said, “Since 2014, I have been creating a holiday advent calendar on Instagram called an Adventgram. Aside from working as a portrait photographer and photojournalist, I have branched out in recent years to create images and sculptures made from ocean plastic collected on Bermuda’s shores.
“So in 2018, it seemed like a logical choice to create my Adventgram out of exclusively ocean plastics. It is also an opportunity to educate people, in my own little way, about the current global crisis we find ourselves in. I made the decision to repeat with the plastic this year.”
Ms Andrews “2″, which she posted saying, “Whether it be a football, tennis ball, golf ball or even the ball from your roll on deodorant, there are millions of plastic balls floating around our oceans. Talk about an own goal.”
Ms. Andrews’ work caught the attention of CNN last year, with the American news source saying, “At this time of year, advent calendars deck the halls around the world. And the stunning island of Bermuda, some 600 miles east off the coast of the Carolinas, is no exception.”
“But the island’s pink sand beaches share a problem with many coastal regions around the world — plastic pollution from the ocean is washing up on them.
Ms Andrews “5″, which she posted saying, “The pen is mightier than the swordfish. When we speak about plastic pollution, we most commonly think about plastic bags and bottles, but what we tend to neglect are the actual baddies like ball-point pens/plastic pens.”
“To highlight the problem, local photographer and visual artist Meredith Andrews is collecting plastic that has washed up on the shores of Bermuda to create a striking advent calendar on Instagram, which she calls an Adventgram.”
To follow along with Meredith Andrews’ Adventgram and see more of her work, visit her Instagram page.
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Category: All, Environment, News
This is great I love seeing interesting and innovative ways to raise awareness for our ocean plastic problem. Ocean Cleanup and Ekoru.org are great initiatives but we need to see more individual activities like this.
Great work Meredith! As Island residents and eaters of fish we all need to know about how our plastic addiction is leading to environment damage of epic proportions. By changing our buying habits and using less plastic we can force corporations to find alternatives , but they will not do it until they have to.