Plastic Food Chain

Francisco Reyes English 096 Ragana

OUR LIFE'S FUTURE

                                                           Harming our Species    
   This art piece is a representation of what is occurring in our oceans today. Fish are mistakenly eating the trash that humans have polluted the seas with. I have created a shark filled with trash that I encountered during the beach clean up at Dockweiler Beach simply to display what would happen in the future. The ocean's Apex Predator would no longer exist, along with copious amounts of species, and it would be our faults if it comes to this.

Beautiful Trashy Beaches - Chelsea Mendoza

Johnny Corona

Johnny Corona

My art project shows what I mostly saw at the beach. All the trash left behind shows what we are addicted to. It not only affects us but the ecosystems around us. We are not aware of all the trash we leave behind. Johnny is made out of cigarettes, a lighter, and bottle cap covered in plastic. These objects are not just bad for our bodies, but for the animals who call the beach their home. We are slowly killing our selves and the birds. The birds mistake these items as food. I wrapped everything in plastic, an object we are surrounded by and cannot escape. The way we treat our selves reflects how we treat our environment. 

Eat Trash - Johana Alvarez

            For my art project I chose to make a seagull because while I was cleaning at Dockweiler Beach my group and I found feathers near the trash we would pick up. This meant that seagulls and other types of birds were probably looking for something to feed their little ones and they pick up trash that looks appetizing to them. All that trash might not even digest and will be stuck inside the birds and they will die from all that trash because of our fault of not picking up after ourselves. Imagine how many birds we are killing daily because of our laziness. Some people might not be aware of how much it affects the animals but that is what we are doing, feeding them trash. My seagull is made from a fast food box for the body, plastic for the wings, and the beak is made from a used post it. The inside of the box is filled with trash just like real birds, I chose this as my art piece because I want to make people see reality and what the consequences are for not cleaning after ourselves and not recycling.

More Than Water

My artwork represents the trash beyond what we see. When we walk around the beach we notice a few trash here and there but we don’t stop to think about how much trash is actually piling up. The animals are made out of dirt to represent that no beach is safe from the effects of pollution. The trash surrounding is what people do our beaches. The blue in my project represents the water and what it looks like under the sea where all our waste goes.  If more people participated in cleaning the beach animals would be safe in their habitat instead of dying from all the trash they eat.

The Camera - Antonio Gonzalez

Pretty soon we won't have anything beautiful to photograph of nature. All of out oceans are getting dirtier and dirtier with time. Our cities are getting even more polluted by all the cars and factories we have now a days. Plants and trees are slowly dying because of heavy droughts. Animals are going extinct due to drastic climate change. There will soon be no beauty surrounding us. In the near future, nature will not be photogenic anymore. Nature is slowly disappearing and slowly dying, all because of us not taking care of Earth, as we should be. Doing simple tasks such as keeping our streets and neighborhoods clean, using less water, using less electricity, and even stopping from using or buying products that we know can harm and contaminate our world in one way or another.

Above Nature

Stefanie Treminio

Under the Surface of the Earth

Under the surface of the Earth

            I thought of the earth, the way I saw the Beach on Sunday morning. From afar the beach seemed very clean with blue water, baby blue skies, peachy tanned sand and surfers at the peak of a wave. As I got closer the trash began to emerge more and more and the sand became dangerous to walk on and the surfers were drained in filthy water. This experience gave me a vision for my art piece. The top of the earth is how we view it from a distance, very clean, beautiful, green grass, brown mountains, and white clouds. The bottom half of the globe is the real surface of the earth meaning the streets, towns, beaches, and any other land that is most likely filled with our trash that we decided throw on the ground. The objects used in this project are just one of many harmful pieces that stay in our earth forever and eventually end up in our oceans. Also, we look at the trash found in Dockweiler Beach which is only a tiny area of our earth, just imagine conditions on other parts of the world. I used the trash to represent the outcome of throwing trash in the street. This trash is ending up in our home plant and is becoming toxic. The trash left behind effects every part of the world until trash eventually takes over man.

My art project may come off as rather simple, but it brings up a common nuisance. My project is an exaggeration, meant to symbolize the trash we see on the sides of roads and highways, which is where I mainly obtained this trash. You notice when you're driving on the roads, or freeways, you see a bunch of trash on the sides. Well, my project is showing what would hapen if this trash were to pile up immensely. My project is showing the trash literally blocking the highway...which is something very possible. In my project, I also drew several trash cans, to emphasize the point that there are trash cans all around us, and if you wanted to throw away something, it wouldn't be difficult to find one. I also think cleaning up our streets is just as important as cleaning up the beach, seeing as how most of the trash on the beach comes from the streets. So if someone is cleaning up the beach, there should be someone cleaning up the streets to add some balance.

Hidden Danger

My art piece conveys my thought on why people litter. I developed this concept that people litter because they do not view waste as a dangerous threat, when they look at trash on the street they think it's harmless. However what they do not realize is that the trash left on the ground kills many organisms. To portray this in my art project I built a structure with trash that does not look like anything unless a light is flashed upon it. This causes the pieces of trash to cast a shadow of a skull. The shadow of a skull represents the hidden danger within plastic waste and the inevitable loss of life. The light used represents education that helps people see trash for what it is. Plastic waste affects many organisms, especially when it reaches the coast, the waste interacts with multiple ecosystems and kills many animals in the process causing the endangerment of various species. Plastic waste not only releases toxins during production which affects our atmosphere, it is ingested by many animals that confuse it for food which ultimately leads to death. Education is the only way to reduce littering and help people understand the danger behind plastic.

Trash Of tomorrow

Plastic Explosion

Confession of America's Most Wanted

This is my confession. I was America’s most wanted criminal. For years I slipped into your homes without so much as a second glance. Everyone in the country has felt my wrath, but people just recently started to notice me. I was a master in disguise a force to be reckoned with and that is because I was the wolf in sheep’s clothing. You all blindly invited me into your lives and I am steps away from taking what I came here for…life. Carelessly you threw me away and I slithered into storm drains and found my way into the ocean. In the meantime prowled on shelves in the stores just waiting to ambush you with my BPA. From bottles, to bags, toys, and food my team and I had taken over. We were on top of the world, but I have been caught red handed. I plead guilty to every crime, but I am confident you can’t stop the disciples I left behind. We have destroyed you from the inside out all with a smile on our faces. Your world depends on us! People know the harm we bring and they continue to keep us around because they have forgotten how to live without us. Now that you see me for what I really am I will present a challenge. Can you destroy my life before I destroy yours?

The Homicidal Stickman

My art project for Heal the Bay depicts a homicidal stickman wielding a gun. As can be seen, he is made of straws, Styrofoam, and various other junk I found on Dockweiler Beach. The homicidal stickman kills baby seagulls, turtles, and all other marine wild life we all know and love. He is essentially the embodiment of all humanity who destroys everything in its path, or completely warps it for its own needs and desires. The stickman clings to his gun, his main source of power, which he uses to instill fear in other creatures. The stickman is literally tangled up in his own mess, brought on by his utter disrespect for nature and lack of common decency, such as not littering on beaches.

Caution Toxic Beach

Tree of Rebirth

      I began with the concept of a tree, that symbolizes life and recreation or re-birth. The journey begins with a waste bin that is filled with chip bags, which represent the trash that is thrown away every day. From there the trunk of the tree begins to grow leading to its branches. Right on the very top is a brandy bottle containing a love letter that shows if you give love to the planet, love will come out. The caution tape shows that you have to be careful with planet, because it is so delicate. Trash can be turned into other new, beautiful objects if it is properly recycled thus giving life to the old and used.

Can't Grow Up art project

My art project reflects the nest of the Albatross and what it looks like after a period of time. Like other species, these birds mistake small pieces of debris for food. The egg carton represents the nest, the little craters that the chicks live in. The parents bring objects like bottle caps, q-tips, pieces of paper, string and etc., to their young. Without any sense of what it is, these young birds eat the trash and end up chocking on or dying from lack of food/too many foreign objects in their bodies. I chose this as my project because it's sad that the birds and other species have to face the consequences of our laziness. The trash is all the dirt that the parents accidentally bring back to the nest to feed the chicks. I feel that we should be more conscious about what we do with our waste and make sure to recycle or properly dispose the trash so that animals don't have to die and can be safe.

Trashy Earth

                                                                                                                              Kimberly Mercado

                                                             Trashy earth

My art project is called trashy earth because we have a really big problem with trash. Not only where we throw our trash, but also with how much trash we produce.  Home to only 4% of the global population, americans are responsible for more than 30% of the planet’s total waste.  Each American discards an average of more than 1,650 pounds of garbage every year. If we don’t start producing less trash pretty soon our landfills are going to get full and there won’t be any place to put our trash and our planet will end up looking like my art project.