A Whale of a Warning Tale
Image courtesy of Monterey Bay Aquarium
82-foot sculpture crafted from discarded plastic
When it comes to in-your-face warnings about plastic pollution and its effect on our oceans and coastlines, bigger is better. Nothing drives home the point like the 82-foot-long blue whale pieced together with laundry detergent bottles, shampoo bottles, juice containers, milk jugs and trash cans that’s on display near San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
A team of environmentally conscious artists handcrafted the whale from discarded plastic to raise awareness about ocean pollution.
According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a real blue whale can weigh as much as 300,000 pounds. Sadly that’s equivalent to the amount of plastic that enters the ocean EVERY 9 MINUTES.
The whale sculpture, which was created by artists Joel Deal Stockdill and Yustina Salnikova, is on display at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
A feature in the Monterey Herald notes that the plan was hatched when a member of the aquarium’s advertising team saw a dead blue whale washed up on a Marin County beach.
“We created a life-sized blue whale to dramatize the scale of the problem,” said Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “As people view the installation, we hope they’re inspired to make changes in their own plastic consumption and will to join us in protecting ocean wildlife.”
Stockdill, a San Francisco Bay Area artist known for creating art from reclaimed materials, and Salnikova worked with a team to sort, clean and cut the plastic trash before melting it down and transforming it a whale.
The aquarium hopes the sculpture will spread the message that plastic waste is a giant problem. The sculpture will be on display until January, but the aquarium hopes it will then travel to other places to raise awareness of ocean plastic pollution.