Plastic is Pervasive and Dangerous

The memeification of microplastics minimizes their danger making light of one of the most pressing environmental hazards facing us today. Sorry to poop on the party. My thesis research is focused on alternatives to plastic – especially within the food packaging industry.

Toxic chemicals in plastic polymers have been found to contribute to numerous negative health outcomes in mammals, including disruptions to the endocrine, metabolic, and renal systems even at small amounts of exposure (Kataria et al., 2015; Stevens et al., 2024). Dietary exposure to low levels of toxic chemicals found in plastic is common in humans given how much of our food is packaged in plastic (Biryol et al., 2017; Muncke et al., 2020).

Plastic also lacks circularity, biodegradability, and is one of the least likely materials to be recycled (Di et al., 2021; Dalzell and Lynch, 2020; Eriksen et al., 2023; NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, 2023).

A lot of my artwork focuses on over-consumption, plastic’s constant choke-hold, and the end of the world.

My Brief Review of Alternative Food Packaging Materials

A Policy Analysis and Argument for Safer Food Packaging Materials