Silver 2016 / Editorial / Environmental

Plastic Trees

  • Photographer
    Eduardo Leal
  • Prizes
    Silver in Editorial/Environmental

The world consumes 1 million every minute, it was consider by Guinness World Book of Records as “the most ubiquitous consumer item in the world”, but the all useful plastic bag as become the main source of pollution worldwide. It can be found everywhere on the planet from seaside, the bottom of the ocean, the arctic and even at the top of the world, on Mount Everest. Since most of the plastic isn’t biodegradable and it is a durable material it can last for hundreds of years in the environment. The problem is even more acute in developing countries where waste management infrastructures are not really developed and where the population used to throw everything away, was not educated to the long life of this material. This accumulation of plastic bags on the environment cause deterioration of the landscapes, agriculture soils and it is associated to the death of domestic and wild animals. Plastic Trees series was made to call for the attention on this problem, focusing on the spreading of the plastic bags on the Bolivian Altiplano, where millions of bags travel with the wind until they got entangled in native bushes, damaging the beautiful landscapes. Sadly these images don't portrait an isolated case, they can be seen in many countries all over the world.