GSA . Co-Lab 2 Portfolio Essay . 23

Plastic in the Ocean

CO-LAB 2

Daniel Soh . 22087532

Word Count: 1197

Project Tutor: India Czulowski

Organic Tutor: Rob Colvin

image by Paulo Oliveira

Synopsis Members

Plastic waste is a catastrophic man-made problem. Sorting and recycling plastics might be feasible if not for the insurmountable issue of marine plastic and microplastics. To battle the Anthropocene we must rely on activism and education of people of all ages. In this Project our group attempts to challenge the notion that climate change revolves around Mega-politics and Mega-economics, instead, could we distil (not dilute) climate material to a level that is accessible to a child? In doing so we hope to foster curiosity about our planet and encourage the younger generation to do more and better than us.

Introduction

Zine Workshop

The Anthropocene is a scary topic, with all of its facts, details and complicated intricacies it can often few overwhelming. What can individual efforts do to bring about a change to the system? Individuals often feel discouraged after viewing doom-and-gloom news about the climate. Kalmus, Peter 2021. In this Portfolio Essay, my group attempts to use publication as a medium to convey the gravity and urgency of the Anthropocene.

Katie Tweedie

Front Cover, Intro to Impact, Litter off Turtle, What can be Done, Back Cover

Jessica Crooksin

Plastic Stats, Fish maze, Intro to Improvement

Li Xiang

Intro to Plastics, Clearing plastic using boats, impact

Daniel Soh

Content, Pacific Garbage, Center Pop up, Picking up Litter

We were introduced to the methods of zine making. Our group created short stories around whimsical takes on Greek mythology. This practice helped us structure our Childrens book in segments while maintain coherency

Preliminary Research

To begin the project, our group first discussed what the Anthropocene meant to us. We landed on a similarity that we disliked, discouraging messages. Not for the message itself but by the way it is conveyed. It leaves no room for individual curiosity. We also agreed that this is why we chose publication in the first place, as publication’s messaging is concise yet subtle. We started discussing different communication devices and we landed upon creating a children’s book. Our intention was to convey the Anthropocene in a manner which is accessible to a child while fostering curiosity instead of dread.We were careful to straddle between blaming the individual, and false hope

https://www.nationaljewish.org/conditions/health-information/health-infograp hics/is-your-child-getting-enough-sleep https://www.amazon.co.uk/Childrens-Illustrated-Encyclopedia-DK

Due to the shear volume of climate information at our disposal we decided to focus on marine plastic. We foresee the effects of marine pollution on sea creatures to resonate with a younger audience. To expand and seek inspiration we looked at puppets María Gassis 2017, encyclopedias and other infographics to guide our design and structure.

We concurred to effectively communicate our message we had to structure our book into 3 segments 1. Impact 2. Improvement 3. Activism. Then paired our research on interactive design with the information to be included within these 3 segments. We divided up the pages to be researched and completed individually and met regularly to access the progress and theme. We took extra effort to make a coherent font, colour scheme and layout for the whole book. We then cladded the covers with Katie’s signature plastic weave.

my attempt at dissecting the layers

Contents

Katie Tweedie

Very little of the plastic we discard every day is recycled or incinerated in waste to energy facilities

UNEP 2018 73% of beach litter worldwide is plastic. One million plastic bottles are bought every minute. There could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 Giving Compass 2022

Top and Left: Katie recycled plastic weave method, adapted from her work in CO-LAB 1. We knitted 15x15 sheets to fit the dimensions of our Bottom: Katie’s other work including Picking litter of the Turtle Development

Jessica Crooksin

Good Attempt at water Maze

http://populationgrowth.org/can-we-win-the-battle-of-plastic-pollution/ https://botanicalpaperworks.com/blog/be-a-part-of-the-fight-against-pl astic-pollution-for-world-environment-day-2018/ https://facts.net/plastic-pollution-facts/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/06/plastic-straws-and-bags-nomore-canada-aims-to-clean-up-its-act https://www.primelineretail.com/blogs/news/plastic-bag-hacks-ways-toreuse-your-plastic-shopping-bags https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2020/12/10/why-recycle

Left: Maze Attempts, started with water, had to compromise to paper Top: Refernce for inforgraphics

Right: Other tasks such as ‘how to improve’ ‘3Rs’

Li Xiang

POP UP

2/

https://www.pinterest.co m/pin/11744550275884301

https://www.instructables. com/Pull-Out-Birthday-Ca

rd/

https://www.creativeboom .com/features/here-design s-new-interactive-book

https://www.pinterest.co m/pin/16466293010343813

6/

https://www.pinterest.co m/pin/65372570216665975

https://blog.ellenhutson.co m/2018/10/20/holiday-flip -slider-card/

Daniel Soh

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 1 of many accumulations of marine debris in the North Pacific. Marine debris often comes from litter near beaches or rivers. National Geography 2022. The current size of the Pacific Garbage patch is estimated to be 5.7x the size of the United Kingdom. Rice, Doyle 2018. A majority of debris are fragmented or microscopic-sized pieces referred to as microplastics. Richard Philip 2013. Studies have shown that the Pacific Patch alone has increased 10-fold each decade since 1945. Chris Maser 2014. Studies also shown that 52% of turtles have eaten plastic waste. WWF 2022. An estimated 8 Million metric tons of plastic enters the world’s Oceans yearly. OSPAR 2017. Microplastics enter the food chain via plankton, which are eaten by small fish which will then be preyed upon by larger fishes. Rebecca, Lindsey 2013. Plastic debris has been found in several commercial species of fish at fisheries. Lin, Vivian 2016, 2018. Additionally, the Method of fishing called trawling is extremely invasive to the seabed. USGS 2016.

Had to learn a lot from existing infographics and infomation presentation, condensing information was not an easy feat, i had to really decide not only which infomation HAD to be presented but also which infomation could be easily represented with diagrams. Only those made into the final designs.

ThisBookisdesignedand curatedtointroducethe effectsofplastic pollutiontochildrenin anunderstandableand interactivemanner.While havingfun,wehopetheycan learnandbecuriousaboutthe futureofourplanet.

Digital format as pages needed to be flat, i wished i varied my work to include a range of physical pop-ups or mixed-media presentation formats. I will try for the next project...

https://www.freepik.com/premi um-vector/ocean-pollution

https://www.shutterstock.com/i

vector/stop-ocean-pollution

https://www.mana.md/world-h

ealth-day-is-april-7/how-to-re duce-plastic-pollution-in-ouroceans/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/ 538883911644954697/

https://www.123rf.com/photo_v ector-illustration

Daniel Soh

Higher concentrations of microplastics have been detected at urbanised beaches. Graca, Bożena 2017. The plastic that we throw ends back in our food. Many small-scale initiatives have been started, but personal responsibility also plays a part and should not be overlooked. Van Sebille 2021.

The Central Pop-up became a series of compromises. However, in the process came more space to convey more information and drawings regarding the Anthropocene such as microplastics and trawling

species that are important to

Trawling

essentially scrapping the

The initial inspiration came from the pop-up book SHELLS: a pop-up book of wonder

Text by Janet Lawler

Illustration by Lindsay Dale-Scott Paper Engineering by Yoojin Kim

Image is taken from Lin, Vivian 2016 Report for the Environment Science Journal Image is taken from Marine Stewardship Council Website

Final Output

The book turned out great, although there were some issues with the binding, which was rectified. Overall the construction of the book could have been better with more intricate binding techniques. The tactility of the book is sure to resonate with younger audiences.

drawing by Li Xiang

Final Output

Last Thoughts

I had fun completing Co-Lab 2. This project has given me the opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone. Our group was cohesive, responsive and deicsive right from the beginning. Our intention: distill climate information for kids, captivate motivate and encourage children to be curious about the world. That is a powerful message and i believe we did our best to convey the gravity of the climate emergency within our publication. I think if i were handed this book as a present it will be a delight.

Personally, I did not fully step out of my comfort zone as I relied heavily on digital software. I did very little physical drawing and paper manipulation which was a huge disappointment. This is evident in my center-pop out that i spent so long interrogating the various layers and colours. In the end, i did not have the time to execute on the pop up. Throughout Co-Lab, I realised that I lost interest to further our group’s idea. Being rigid with our intention was a double-edged sword. It meant that the intention could not be developed further. In hindsight, I had too many expectations entering Co-Lab 2, and that stopped me from being open to try new methods of making. Moving forward, I should be more forthcoming with my ideas in group projects. If there is something that i wished to do, i should voice it out earlier. Also, I should push myself to explore more unusual designs that are different from the digital tools i normally use. I think overall our group has achieved what we have set out to do, in both the intention and the execution. On top of that in making our material we also got to chance to research marine plastic which I think was disheartening to read. (That is why we are doing a children’s book) Room for improvement in the fabrication front, but otherwise i would say this has been a successful project.

3.2.Improvement Action

Contents1.Impact

designedThisBookis andintroducecuratedto the pollutioneffectsofplastictochildrenininteractiveanunderstandableand manner.While learnhavingfun,wehopetheycan andbecuriousaboutthefutureofourplanet.

Bibiolography

Aranguren‐Gassis, María. “Using Puppet Shows to Educate Children About Plastic Waste Problem in the Ocean (PEPO Project).” Limnology and oceanography bulletin 26, no. 3 (2017): 75–77. Bank, Michael S., and Michael S. Bank. Microplastic in the Environment. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 2021. Sebille, Erik Van. “Creating a 3D Map of the Plastic Litter Polluting Our Oceans.” TOPIOS,, 2022. http://topios.org/. Sebille, Erik Van. “7 Myths about 'Plastic Soup'.” Utrecht University, August 18, 2021. https://www.uu.nl/en/background/7-myths-about-plastic-soup.

Heimo Mikkola, and Heimo Mikkola. Seabirds. Edited by Heimo Mikkola. London, England: IntechOpen, 2018. Kalmus, Peter. “Climate Depression Is Real. and It Is Spreading Fast among Our Youth | Peter Kalmus.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, November 4, 2021.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/04/climate-depression-youth-crisis-world-leaders. National Geography. “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Education, June 2, 2022. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-pacific-garbage-patch/.

Rice, Doyle. “World's Largest Collection of Ocean Garbage Is Twice the Size of Texas.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, December 28, 2018.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/.

Philp, Richard B. (2013). Ecosystems and Human Health: Toxicology and Environmental Hazards, Third Edition. CRC Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-1466567214.

Maser, Chris (2014). Interactions of Land, Ocean and Humans: A Global Perspective. CRC Press. pp. 147–48. ISBN 978-1482226393.

WWF. “What Do Sea Turtles Eat? Unfortunately, Plastic Bags.” WWF. World Wildlife Fund, January 1, 2022. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-do-sea-turtles-eat-unfortunately-plastic-bags#:~:text=Research%20suggests%20that %2052%25%20of,are%20at%20risk%20from%20plastic.%20Inserted%20into%20page%20Facts%205.

Graca, Bożena, Karolina Szewc, Danuta Zakrzewska, Anna Dołęga, and Magdalena Szczerbowska-Boruchowska. “Sources and Fate of Microplastics in Marine and Beach Sediments of the Southern Baltic Sea—a Preliminary Study.” Environmental science and pollution research international 24, no. 8 (2017): 7650–7661.

OSPAR. “Production and Consumption of Plastics.” Production and Consumption of Plastics, January 1, 2017. https://oap.ospar.org/en/ospar-assessments/quality-status-reports/qsr-2023/other-assessments/production-and-consumption-pla stics/.

Lindsey, Rebecca, and Michon Scott. “What Are Phytoplankton?” NASA. NASA, July 13, 2013. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton#:~:text=A%20bloom%20may%20last%20several,more%20than%20a%20f ew%20days.

USGS. “What a Drag: The Global Impact of Bottom Trawling: U.S. Geological Survey.” What a Drag: The Global Impact of Bottom Trawling | U.S. Geological Survey, March 14, 2016.

https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/what-drag-global-impact-bottom-trawling#:~:text=Trawling%20destroys%20t he%20natural%20seafloor,root%20systems%20or%20animal%20burrows.

Vivian S. Lin “Research highlights: impacts of microplastics on plankton” Environ Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2016,18, 160-163

Up With Paper, SHELLS: a pop-up book of wonder, 2019, Youtube Video depicting work of Janet Lawler, Lindsay Dale-Scott & Yoojin

Kim https://youtu.be/gr6yH8q0FKY

UNEP. “Plastic Planet: How Tiny Plastic Particles Are Polluting Our Soil.” UNEP, April 1, 2018. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/plastic-planet-how-tiny-plastic-particles-are-polluting-our-soil. Giving Compass. “12 Facts about Plastic Pollution You Need to Know.” Giving Compass, September 2, 2022. https://givingcompass.org/article/10-facts-about-plastic-pollution-you-absolutely-need-to-know.