Turning Advocacy into Art and Art into Advocacy
by Kathleen Stachowski
Whales and plastic don’t mix. This was painfully illustrated in 2010 when a gray whale beached himself and died after plying the garbage-filled waters of Puget Sound. Among items as diverse as the leg from a pair of sweatpants, a golf ball, and a juice container, the 37-foot-long male had also swallowed more than 30 plastic bags (photo and full list here).While the primary cause of death was listed as “Accident/Trauma (live stranding),” his stomach contents provided a graphic and sobering illustration of a throwaway culture’s failure to safeguard its home.
“It kind of dramatizes the legacy of what we leave at the bottom, said John Calambokidis, a research scientist with Cascadia Research Collective, who examined the whale’s stomach contents. It was the most trash he’d ever seen in 20 years and more than 200 dead whales.
The unfortunate cetacean might have just been one more victim for the research files—mortality number 200-and-whatever—but for Carrie Ziegler, a Washington state woman who found inspiration and one whale of an opportunity for a teachable moment. Employed as a waste reduction specialist at Thurston County Solid Waste and pursuing personal endeavors as a sculptor and muralist, she learned about the blight of trash floating in the planet’s oceans and then recalled the plastic in the belly of the whale on Washington’s own shore. The Plastic Whale Project was born. continue reading…