Reflection

While I was conducting research, I found that a person uses a plastic bag on average for only 12 minutes. In the meantime, we only recycle 1 plastic bag in every 200 we use. Each year, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are estimated to be consumed worldwide, meaning that one million are consumed per minute. A very large portion of these used plastic bags end up in the ocean, causing deaths of thousands of marine mammals who ingest plastic or get entangled in them. My painting shows a person carrying a plastic bag. The plastic bag represents the ocean and a sea turtle is trapped inside. A plastic bag is stuck on its head making it the bag’s victim. The person is the injurer since the person is the consumer of the bag. Dead coral reefs, fish bones and more plastic bags lie on the ocean floor, showing how seriously the ocean is damaged. Finally, the background is full of people carrying fabric bags, showing the solution for saving our ocean.