The Plasticene

Artificial Earth

Welcome to another edition of Seascapes – a collection of incredible oceanic artwork and photography. 

Let’s dive in 🎨

Once a miracle invention, now an era-defining consumerist nightmare, plastic has become so embedded in our lives, landscapes, and bodies that scientists argue it defines a new age within the Anthropocene: the Plasticene.

In recent testing, microplastics were found in every sample of semen. In another study, at least one piece was found in the breath of every dolphin tested. It’s been found in our blood, in placentas, in Arctic ice cores, and in the deepest ocean trenches. Hermit crabs use discarded plastic as a home. Birds are feeding it to their chicks. Whales are swallowing so much of it, it kills them.

We can no longer deny that this poison has a permanent place in our world—and will continue to release its toxins into us and into nature until we stop producing it. Only then will cleaning it up have any real impact.

Until that day, such is the power of this pollution that we’ve essentially created a new age. One marked not by stone, bronze, or iron, but by plastic. Here are some extraordinary photographs capturing the Plasticene and the synthetic world it's shaping.

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A Pakistani woman collects and separates plastic bottles so she can sell them to recycling factories. Photo by Sufyan Arshad.

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A pen lid for a house. Photo by Luis Diaz Devesa.

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‘A Diet of Deadly Plastic’ shows the 403 pieces swallowed by this flesh-footed shearwater. Photo by Justin Gilligan.

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A pair of curious rhesus macaques in Nepal. Photo by Pete Ryan.

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A 38 foot plastic whale surfaced in Bruges in 2018. Designed by Brooklyn-based architecture and design firm STUDIOKCA, the five tons of plastic that make the whale were pulled from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

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‘Walk Through the River of Plastics’ captured by Jahid Apu shows the scale of pollution in the Buriganga River.

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How easy it is for them to ingest a plastic bag. A whale shark in the Gulf of Aden near Yemen. Photo by Thomas P. Peschak.

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Two boys witness the influx of plastic in the Njoro River. Flowing through the Mau Forest, once it reaches Lake Nakuru (a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kenya) it is full of plastic. Photo by James Wakibia.

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Back to the nest with a mouthful of plastic. Photo by Graham Moore.

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‘Invitation to Invade’ is a fine art photography series by Adedolapo Boluwatife.

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A vision of hope. Photo by Ed Wray.

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Plastic six-pack rings are a death sentence to small marine animals who can easily become entangled. Photo by Flip Nicklin, Minden Pictures.

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Amie 🐋