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Collected Item: “The mask trash series”

Give your story a title.

The mask trash series

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

text story

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

The mask trash series.

Historical records come in many forms, and although history favors the written record, the current pandemic reveals ephemeral stories worth documenting. Globally, many people are wearing face masks daily, some are hand-sewn, others commercially made, and some are disposable. They are necessary, they slow the rate of transmission, but they also come with an environmental cost.

Corresponding with this new public health trend is a rise in pandemic-related trash such as face masks littering driveways, streets, sidewalks, parks, and waterways. Face masks choke the landscape and harm wildlife. Disposable masks are spun from polymer plastic, meaning they won’t break down, but they will continue to split into smaller and smaller pieces, some of which will be ingested by animals and even re-consumed by other creatures in the food chain.

The mask trash series seeks to highlight the increase in pandemic-related trash, and give space to a facet of history we often wish we could ignore: the waste we either intentionally or inadvertently discard.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

mask, face mask, trash, litter, environment, discard

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Katy Kole de Peralta

Give this story a date.

2021-03-23
Click here to view the corresponding item.