Exhibition 2019 - On the Edge of the Sand - Sea Plastic Pollution

I was really inspired by David Attenborough's TV series 'The Blue Planet' particularly by the short film about plastic pollution in the oceans. Did you know that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the Ocean than fish?

I love to walk along the beach near my home and I had always thought that it was really clean, until I started looking along the strand line for plastic pollution and I found... a lot! An awful lot of plastic, particularly fishing line, cotton bud sticks and bottle tops. Most of this had been in the sea for a while and washed up on the beach. It is very harmful to wildlife who often eat it, or get caught up in it. Particularly sad are the "security" rings from bottles which can get stuck on bird's beaks and leave them to starve to death. I always cut these now before throwing them in the bin. 

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I decided to theme my next class on the sea and sea plastic pollution and my students and I all collected plastic pollution from our local beaches and experimented incorporating it into our work, creating these amazing abstract seascapes! ​

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Here's how we used the plastic pollution that we found...