17/01/2022
We Are The Virus - a photo project for the times.
Littering has always been a problem but in the last 75 years or so products and things have become even more desirable and more disposable. People buy stuff and companies have made it more convenient to buy them and then to get rid of them by making them literally ‘throw away’, single use products. We have become more willing to simply dispose of things rather than to recycle and re-use which, inevitably, leads to more littering and now we have become desensitised to litter – it is everywhere.
There are some awesome organisations out there like Surfers Against Sewage and The Ocean Cleanup, all doing their bit to help clean things up, but I’m sure that a little more awareness of the issue will prompt more people to do their bit on a daily basis too. It is not Ok to become desensitised to this.
The Covid 19 pandemic has now given us another product that is seen as disposable as any other and the volume of it is unique for its time. The face mask has become ubiquitous to this pandemic and is now becoming part of the littering problem too. This series of images shows how masks are becoming part of the problem just because of the sheer number of them now in circulation. The dangers to the environment of litter are well known and well documented and yet here we are, dying from a virus and yet maybe, to our planet, we are the virus.
