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Filmmaker Ben Zolno's "Plastic State of Mind" parodizes the hit Jay-Z/Alicia Keys track on behalf of a cause we hold dear around here: banning single use plastic. Commissioned by Green Sangha, a Californian spiritual and activist group, the video reminds us that even though awareness is growing of the harm caused by plastic bags, shoppers use a million grocery bags every single......read more
Over the past twelve years, Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang have collected several tons of plastic debris on a small stretch of beach near their northern California home. The pieces of plastic are cleaned, categorized, and sorted, before the couple goes to work transforming the garbage into beautiful pieces of art. This short doc profiles the couple and their creative output and......read more
California, stand up! The first organized attempt at a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags may have faltered, but the fight rages on. Emboldened by several successful local actions boycotting wasteful plastic shopping bags, Californians are urging Governor Jerry Brown to make a move. Plastic pollution harms wildlife, threatens public health, and hinders the economy. It's......read more
With rising population growth and global climate change putting stress on the consumable 1% of the planet's water, the global water crisis may just be the most critical threat facing our existence on earth. With his Facing Water Crisis project, Dallas-based photographer Balazs Gardi takes the issue head on. In his words: The unfolding water crisis is causing social tensions and......read more
Surrealistic animation beautifully juxtaposes the undersea movements of a jellyfish and a plastic bag, offering some poignant commentary on marine pollution in the process. Made by SHFT collaborator Elizabeth Klein, the film makes use of rotoscoping, an age-old animation technique that involves tracing over live-action film movement, frame by frame, creating a dreamlike visual effect. Music by......read more
If there was a hall of fame for sustainable business, Dr. Mike Biddle would be one its first inductees. Twenty years ago, the trailblazing plastics engineer launched MBA Polymers in his garage. He was determined to prove that complex polymers from consumer plastics could be recycled into useful raw materials. Mike developed a patented series of techniques for separating and refining plastic waste......read more
With the global population at 7.2 billion and growing at a rate of almost 400,000 people a day (!), overpopulation is as timely a topic as ever. London-based artists Andrew Khosravani and Cristina Florit Gomila explore the issue in "Crowded," a stunner of a stop-motion animation created almost entirely in plasticene. Over a year in the works, the piece represents the pair's desire to explore the......read more
Lovers of stop-motion behold this excellent wire-and-paper creation from Victor Haegelin of French studio Patador Prod. Accompanied by a track from Professor Kliq, Haegelin's wire protagonist walks along to the beat while fluidly unraveling and coiling around paper structures. The one-and-a-half minute result is short is one of the coolest, best made animation pieces we've seen in a while.......read more
Ten years ago, when Harrison Dillon and his partners founded Solazyme in a garage in Palo Alto, CA, their goal was to create clean, renewable diesel fuel from algae. And so they did. But it was clear after a couple of years that they needed to find other applications for algae-based biofuel to make their business fly. Today, the San Francisco-based company's technology is being used to......read more
The new video for "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards," the second single from Tame Impala's landmark Lonerism LP, carries on with the swirling, psychedelic visual aesthetic on full display in the Aussie band's previous video. This time, however, directors Joe Pelling and Becky Sloan take a handmade approach, individually making 1,000 plasticine collages that are......read more
