PLASTIC IS FOREVER

2018 / single-use plastics + diamonds

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The single-use plastic industry is dependent on ‘externalizing’ (basically ignoring) the true costs of product production in order to keep the prices low. This has led to the mistreating of a very resilient material. What are the true costs of consuming throw-away plastics? The long life span and the constant increase in production, is already costing us the health of Earth and its inhabitants. The damage it will bring in the future is unfathomable.

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Plastic is not the only mistreated resource. The price of diamonds has skyrocketed only since the last century, thanks to a marketing strategy that made them a symbol of love and eternity. Its pseudo value is analogous to the artificially low price of throw-away plastics which are supposed to be cheap and possessing little to no value. Both are produced from resources extracted deep underground, which took millions of year to develop and both are going to be passed on for generations to come.

Internalizing the total environmental costs of playing with fossil fuels could make single-use plastics so expensive, that owning them would be considered an extravagance. If the famous slogan ‘diamond is forever’ changed the diamond industry, then this project attempts to turn throw-away plastics into a symbol of luxury, by spreading the maxim ‘plastic is forever'.

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