The “United States Department of Plastics Consumption” is a mock/satirical ad campaign focused on providing access to educational materials about the presence of microplastics in our ecosystems. It contains calls to action regarding the lack of funding and government focus for research in three main fields: microplastics in our food/water, how to remove them, and their effects on our health.
GET INVOLVEDIf we're bringing awareness and compiling informational materials around the consumption of microplastics through dark humor then lets start off with the basics – what are microplastics?
VIEW FURTHER RESEARCHFeatured on the right was a segment of the inaugural USDPC meeting where I created an "edible cellophane" out of agar agar powder that I made and dried over the course of 1-2 days. The wrapping is water soluble and edible, a slight seaweed taste, and was used to both inspire people to think outside the box for plastic alternatives that exist around us, and as a gag that you can eat your cookie, "plastic" wrapping and all, since you do that with your food anyways.
The three chocolate chips on each cookie also represent only half of your weeks worth of microplastic consumption by weight, so around 2-3 grams out of the 5 grams ingested per week on average.
Did you know that you consume a credit card's worth of microplastics every week? Are you aware that there are microplastic particles existing even in the most remote regions of the planet? Would you like to find out more?
Hosted under the USDPC branding, please click through to view past event instigations such as the "Credit Card Cookies", "Edible Cellophane", and more! Stay tuned for future iterations.
Highlights from projects over the course of the year - please ask me more about it by emailing me at blairbovaird@gmail.com
