Silent Predator

People tend to believe that sharks are the most dangerous creatures n the ocean. However there is something way worse. Trash! Trash in the ocean is a serous threat and a silent predator. They kill sea creatures without them knowing. They eat them either by hunting other fish or mistaking them for food. While walking along the beach of Dockweiler I picked up so much trash. In this scene the great white shark is swimming in a sea of trash. Eating the trash can potentially harm the shark. However to the shark it doesn't know what it is and thinks of it as food. All these pieces of trash were some that I picked up at the Heal The Bay event even the toy shark. While picking up the trash I realized how dirty our beaches are and that we need to take care of them or else we risk losing our friends in the ocean. We need to take action because even a shark is vulnerable to these silent predators.

Litter Man

The Litter Man

​My artwork shows the skeleton of a man protesting to end littering. I attempted to include as much of a variety of trash as possible to show that all kinds of trash affect us. We should think that all litter has bad effects on the environment instead of calculating the damage the litter could potentially do and waving it off as a small amount. This mindset will most likely positively impact our litter rate and reduce the damage caused by litter. The human is composed of trash because it shows that our litter will damage us. The negative aftermath will eventually affect humans by killing us and replacing us.

​My intended message from this art project is for people to stop littering. The collective amount of litter created by nearly all seven billion people on Earth must be tremendous, and I hypothesize that most people do not instantly recognize this devastating fact. I hope to get this message across to all of the litterers so that we can reduce the amount of littering.

​Through the intended message of my work, I hope to put a new perspective into the minds of litterers: litter is a global issue. Hopefully, I can reduce the amount of littering and indirectly reduce the damage caused to human race.

Window To a Better Future

Salla Kim

English 101

Professor Garrett

12/03/14 – Fall 2014

Community Engagement + Art Project Reflection

The target audience of my art project are people of all ages and from all walks of life, because we all produce trash and contribute to the global waste problem. My art project includes trash that I collected from the Dockweiler State Beach during one of the “Heal the Bay” beach clean-up events. I used trash that we see every day such as “NO PARKING” sings, candy wrappers, chip bags, and bottle caps. I believe that using such familiar trash will have a greater effect on the audience, because they will have a connection to it through their own lives. 

In my artwork, translucent trash, such as the plastic in water bottles, form a stained-glass- like window in my art work, while the rest of the trash is used as a frame and platform. The stained-glass window symbolically represents a window to a better environmental future. It may be difficult to see through this window right now, but with the help of organizations and events like “Heal the Bay”, we may begin to see through it, especially if we work together towards a brighter future.

We can improve the environment through simple actions. Though we may not be able to restore it to its former glory, we can take simple steps to help keep the environment clean and prevent its further degradation. Organizations such as “Heal the Bay” do exactly that. Through their beach cleaning events, they encourage picking up trash from the beaches. It is depressing to see so much trash at a beach, a place that is supposed to be a relaxing get-away from the polluted city life. Attending “Heal the Bay” events forces one to notice all the trash left in the nature, and become very critical and aware of actions that contribute to the littering problem and other environmental offenses.

Once the audience has seen my artwork, I want them to leave with a better understanding of the effects of our careless lifestyle. I want them to go back home reflecting on how they deal with trash and become more aware of their own, everyday actions. Although we might think that a tiny bottle cap or a candy wrapper left in the nature will do no harm, the accumulation of all this trash leads to the waste problem we have on our planet. More specifically, the trash found on the beach pollutes the beach habitat and kills birds, fish, seals, and other marine populations.

I want anyone who sees my artwork to think about their lifestyle and how it affects the world we live in. If they realize that we all contribute to making our planet a cleaner, safer, and more just home to us all and become more aware of our own actions, then I believe my artwork has fulfilled its purpose.  

The Large Cigarette

Art Project: "The Large Cigarette" 

by Katherine Roizen

            A few weeks ago I participated in the Heal the Bay beach clean-up. I helped clean up the beach and used the trash I collected to create my art project. My art project consists of many cigarettes and a plastic bottle, which I glued together to make one large cigarette. I created my art project to help show that, although people may think that one piece of trash is nothing, all of it combined is a lot of waste. That waste then goes into the ocean and harms the environment because marine mammals mistake the trash for food and die from it. We all need to work together so that we can help solve this problem.

            At the beach clean-up I picked up large amounts of trash; however, I only used cigarettes and a plastic bottle in my art project. I chose to use these items because they were some of the most commonly found pieces of trash found on the beach where we cleaned up. We found about 830 cigarettes and plastic bottles in about an two hours. In fact, I found these items almost every five feet. One can agree that this is quite a lot of waste found in a small amount of time. This inspired me to create my art, which helps show that many single pieces of trash can accumulate into a large amount of waste.

            People need to realize the environmental effects of littering because our entire world may become even more polluted or dangerous for our health and safety. Most people do not understand the consequences of littering, even if it is just one tiny piece of trash. When one is walking along the street and throws their trash on the ground, they typically think to themselves, "It's just one piece of trash, it's not going to harm anyone." They usually do not think of the larger picture: if everyone littered, even just one piece of garbage, it would eventually accumulate into a huge amount of waste that would go through the sewage system and into the ocean. Therefore, I created this 3-D sculpture to help show people the bigger picture of littering in hopes that next time someone is about to throw trash on the ground, they will remember my art and simply throw their garbage into a trashcan.

             

Trashland

Art Project and Community Engagement: Trashland

My art project shows an ocean with a sailboat on its waves and a sun hiding behind clouds. I used various pieces of trash I picked up, such as a discarded CD, a cork, candy wrappers, newspapers, and bottle caps. I looked at the trash I collected for inspiration on my project. When I picked up the CD, I knew it had a destiny as a sail. Thus, I knew I wanted to make an ocean scene, so I planned to put animals into the sea and use the disheveled newspapers as clouds. I wanted to incorporate more trash into my project, so I created animals out of trash, including a “bottle” nose dolphin. The animals and clouds made of trash represent how trash is invading our environment.

Trash is, in essence, unwanted waste. Therefore, humans and society as a whole should reduce the amount of trash we generate and keep it away from us while we still can. We cannot idly discard our litter into the ocean’s front door. If we do not take precautions, we become like trash ourselves—unwanted. Much of the trash we litter ends up on the beaches and in oceans, where unsuspecting animals eat them and die. I attended a beach cleanup at Dockweiler beach with Heal the Bay and in total, we found 4,381 pieces of trash in an hour and a half, a small fraction of the prodigious amount of trash blown daily to the coast. Additionally, birds and other animals are the firsts to find and mistakenly eat trash, which fills their stomachs and causes starvation and death. Thus, we need to pay attention to where we throw our trash to take care of our environment and ultimately, ourselves. I hope viewers will take into account the direness of our situation. Our planet is exponentially getting overwhelmed by trash, and if it goes down, we go down with it.

We Are Trash

Lily Nguyen

English 101

Professor Garrett

12/3/14

Community Engagement and Art Project: We Are Trash

            For my art project, I made a person out of trash that I had found during the Heal the Bay clean up at Dockweiler Beach. I used a paper plate as the face, and broke a CD to serve as a broken mirror. This represents how everyone is responsible for trash; some people might produce less trash, but they still produce it. I found a bunch of tangled hairnets, and I put that on top with little bits of trash stuck inside. The body is a plastic 7-11 Big Gulp cup filled with assorted pieces of trash. The Big Gulp cup shows how something as small as a candy wrapper can still have a “big” effect. The arms are a piece of yellow caution tape because we need to be careful and choose the right thing, since our hands are responsible for letting go of the trash. Every piece of my art represents how humans impact the environment with trash.

My art project is a person made out of trash, because humans are the only ones to blame for waste. Based on a report from Duke University, the average human produces 4.3 pounds of waste per day. If you multiply that by 365, it comes out to be 1569.5 pounds of waste produced per person in a year. That number only accounts for one person out of 7 billion. Once it all adds up, humans generate a great deal of trash and my question is: Where does it all go?

Most of the trash is found in places like Dockweiler Beach, the area I went to with Heal the Bay. I found a variety of litter on the hillside beside the beach, ranging from plastic bags to cigarette butts. The volunteers found a total of 549 plastic pieces, not including plastic bottles, wrappers, or bags. The worst part is that plastic does not decompose since it is synthetic, so it will be there until someone or something picks it up. As I was picking up trash, I noticed the amount of animals, especially birds, that took a piece of trash and left. Unfortunately, animals are most likely to eat the piece of plastic that they picked up since they mistook it for food. People on Midway Island often find dead birds on the beach with stomachs full of plastic. This proves that even the smallest piece of plastic can prove to be fatal to the island’s wildlife.

However, we hurt more than just the environment when we litter. When animals die, it can disturb the ecosystem in the area. When the ecosystem is disturbed, humans lose the resources that they can gain from that area. This could be a crippling problem if the ecosystem was not very biologically diverse. Biological diversity (biodiversity) is the amount of species in an ecosystem that work together to help create natural resources (NWF 2010). For example, the biodiversity of the Amazon forest is greater than that of a desert since there are more plant species there. Additionally, areas with less biodiversity are more susceptible to being destroyed through extinction, because it eliminates a major part of the ecosystem. In places like Dockweiler Beach, the death of seagulls could potentially threaten the entire ecosystem. A study done in Surtsey, Iceland showed that seagulls increased the nitrogen in the soil and therefore, increased the amount of vegetation produced (Sigurdsson 2010). Thus, if waste production rises, seagulls could potentially become endangered, lowering the amount of vegetation in beaches. This shows how even the smallest amount of trash has the potential to destroy complex ecosystems.

Littering has endangered many species and will continue disturbing the biodiversity of ecosystems. If the littering continues at such a rate, seagulls could become endangered, which could potentially destroy the coastal ecosystem. However, this is only an example of the coastal environment. This will eventually come back to us. We are the one’s who originally dropped the bubble gum wrapper and we will be the ones that have to face the consequences of it. By hurting the environment, we are also hurting ourselves. So next time you are about to drop that tiny piece of plastic, thinking that it has no effect, think twice.

This Ball of Trash Glows

 

This Ball of Trash Glows

By Elise Dang

When I was at Dockweiler Beach I noticed that most of the trash there was not bits of plastic and Styrofoam from industry, but things like cigarettes, food containers, and beer cans. In fact, when we got the results back for the recorded amount of trash, 60% percent of the trash were things like food and beverage containers and wrappers, cigarettes, cigars, and lighters; all things that people who visit the beach leave behind. The people who leave the trash behind never have any second thoughts about how the trash might affect the environment later on. When trash is left behind on a beach it can harm both humans and wildlife. Eventually the trash will end up it the ocean and make it difficult to swim for both humans and sea life. In addition, the trash will contaminate the water, which will make the sea creatures sick and full of disease. When we eat the fish, the diseases get into our bodies. I’m sure we all agree that we don’t want diseases. In order to change this people need to be more aware of the consequences of carelessly leaving their trash around or the world will eventually become a big ball of filthy trash. But, like Jenny Price said in her article, "Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.", there is still hope for restoration if we start being more aware now. This is what inspired my art project.

One of the ways Price saw nature in L.A. was as especially dangerous to lose track of. She said that we could go ahead and ignore the health of our environment and watch as our skies darken and our river be filled with trash and toxins. I created a hemisphere covered trash that lights up which was inspired by this message that Price conveyed. The hemisphere covered in trash represents what the Earth may end up like if we do not take action now. Trash I included were cigarettes, cigarette boxes, glass shards and bottle caps from beer bottles, aluminum from beer cans, a lighter, and caution tape. The trash I used has to do with human vices like smoking and drinking. They represent how we are too indulged in our own pleasures instead of caring about the world around us. I added the caution tape to make my art sort of like a warning sign. It is saying, “Warning! This will be the Earth if you are not careful!” Another way Price saw nature in L.A. was as a focus of great work. She states that although our city has the worst air quality in the country many organizations are doing great work to change that. This claim that Price made inspired me to add a sense of hope in my art project, so the light represents our hope for restoration.

I hope my art project will convince people to learn more about the effects of carelessly throwing away of leaving their trash at the beach because it not only affects sea life, but humans as well. In addition, I hope that after learning about the consequences, people will be more careful about where they throw away their trash.