Imagine what iconic sites like Trafalgar Square and Statue of Liberty would look like in a sea of plastic. Not pretty, is it?
A sustainable children’s swimwear brand has predicted what the world’s landscape will look like by 2050 if plastic is disposed of at its current rate via the current methods. In the images, landmark sites like Trafalgar Square fountain are littered with plastic bottles, beaches are strewn with plastic bags and rivers are contaminated with waste. The images are part of a campaign by the brand to promote more sustainable plastic disposal methods to reduce plastic pollution.
The Folpetto campaign has transformed the world’s landscape, showing how it will look based on plastic waste, featuring a plastic bottle ridden Trafalgar Square, surfers swimming amongst plastic waste on Bondi beach and the River Seine polluted with plastic.
The images were commissioned to highlight the devastating effects of plastic waste, after it was revealed that by 2050 society will have produced 26 billion tons of plastic and almost half will be dumped in landfills and the environment, and there will be more plastics than fish in the ocean by weight.
Despite the growing demand for plastic, only 5% are recycled effectively, while 40% end up in landfill and a third in fragile ecosystems such as the world’s oceans.**
Folpetto uses sustainable fabric for over 90% of its swimsuits. The fabric for the swimwear is made from 100% regenerated Polyamide fibre from post-consumer materials like abandoned fishnets and other plastic waste collected from the sea.
Camilla Brugnoli, founder of Folpetto said, “The images are really shocking, and I think it will strike a chord with the public. I think it’s easy to read and ignore statistics like a third of plastic ends up in the ecosystem, but when you have a visual representation like an image, it resonates so much more. Choosing to use fabric made from recycled plastic waste was a no brainer for us. Many parents want to make ethical choices for their children, but there’s not a lot of options available at the moment. We want to preserve the world for our children, and this is one small way parents can do that.”