Reflection

I cannot imagine the experience of eating so much that my stomach ruptures; more so, I cannot imagine swallowing something that will poison me while never leaving my body. When I learned that millions of seabirds ingest enough plastic that their stomachs bulge with refuse and their blood chromium levels are toxic, it affected me profoundly. My project is composed almost entirely of plastic; the plastic skeleton filled with plastic rubbish reflects that some birds are almost more petroleum product than healthy flesh and blood. To create my piece of art, I used brown modeling clay, two white plastic bread ties, a white plastic toothpick, and dozens of pieces of scraps of wrappers, straws, and other snippets of trash to make the skeletonized form of a bird that has died of ingesting too much plastic. I used plastic to make the bird because I felt that it would help viewers realize the extent that plastic refuse affects wildlife; the bird in my project obviously died because of waste humans have thrown away. Perhaps if people realized that plastic garbage never truly goes away, they would invest in reusable or recyclable alternatives to the plastics they use in everyday life. For my part, I now feel guilty throwing away any piece of plastic that can’t be recycled or reused; I imagine it clogging the stomach of a bird, slowing it down, poisoning it, and eventually causing its death. I know the consequences of my waste.