WORLD OF WASTE: America’s Mass Consumption in Images
Look at this image.
Photo by Chris Jordan.
Pan out . . .
Photo by Chris Jordan.
Pan out a little more . . .
Chris Jordan. Plastic Bottles, 2007. 60×120″
That right there, is 2,000,000 plastic bottles. The amount of plastic bottles Americans throw out every five minutes.
Welcome to the work of Chris Jordan, a Seattle-based photographer and environmental advocate. Jordan takes beautiful photographs of waste. His hope: to disgust us to change.
Look at this one, a 7 foot long image of 60,000 plastic bags. That’s the amount of plastic bags we use in the U.S. . . . every five seconds. Are you disgusted yet?
Chris Jordan. Plastic Bags, 2007. 60” x 72”
Disappointingly, the jpegs on your computer screen can barely do justice to Jordan’s massive, high resolution photographs, most of which take up entire walls in galleries. Each image illustrates a grouping of America’s waste. But, as Jordan so often prefaces, capturing dissipation in a single photograph is impossible. The true scale of our mass consumption’s accumulation is invisible. Its magnitude is undetectable as it is spread throughout garbage dumps, storage units and landfills from Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island to a fermenting heap in Kenya.
Given the disconnect, Jordan uses “computer shenanigans” or photo shop to illustrate the true scale of our nation’s waste. He starts out with a single image, multiplying it over and over and over again to reach the statistic of our consumption. This image, for example, represents the number of cell phones America discards every few minutes.
Photo by Chris Jordan.
A few hours go by. We discard more cell phones. The heap grows larger.
Photo by Chris Jordan.
A day goes by. 426,000 cell phones discarded in total.
Chris Jordan. Cell Phones, 2007. 60×100″
To explain the shocking magnitude of our waste, Jordan has also released a video installation, Intolerable Beauty and Running the Numbers. The video premiered via the Ingeo NatureWorks Creative Gallery in New York City on Earth Day (Aprill 22nd) and will travel around the world in conjunction with Ingeo Earth Month ending on World Environment Day (June 5th). You can catch Jordan’s video as it travels with Ingeo’s Earth Month exhibit (popular stop off points include Paris and Tokyo) or you can find the film on Jordan’s website (chrisjordan.com).
I encourage you to watch this film. It is mind-blowing and depressing, but also inspiring. As Jordan says in his own words, “ it may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.”
For larger images visit Olivia Zaleski’s blog on the Huffington Post.
Wow… Just, wow… Totally speachless. This is from the realm of “a picture says it better than a thousand words”…
05/05/08 » 2:15 pm »
Thanks for sharing this. I’ll be sure to check out the film on his site. It’s really scary but motivating to see how bad this really is. Photos like these remind me that the small changes I’ve made really do matter. Thanks again!
05/05/08 » 2:47 pm »
Wow, those images are powerful. Its images like those that remind us why we need to jelp the environment!
05/06/08 » 11:02 am »
Making better choices and giving up our love of tech toys and simple conveniences like portable water is the first step we must take if we truly wish to wake up.
I had sushi today and was disgusted at the waste I was responsible for by ordering it ‘to go’. So much plastic. I was ashamed and I can tell you I won’t order ‘to go’ again unless I bring my own container.
05/09/08 » 9:58 pm »
I agree with the above…WOW…its pretty much the only thing we can say regarding this situation. I know I hold onto plastic bags as long as possible and reuse them or try to find a craft project for them. It is very disgusting that society can be so wasteful.
We need to change our ways!
07/08/08 » 7:53 pm »
its images like this that make me feel sick and disgusted at the amount of waste us humans are responsible for. there is absolutely no hope to rectify this damage to the environment if this continues. we need to stop being so selfish and WAKE UP!
04/18/10 » 12:20 am »