Author(s): Julie Decker

Environment

A flip-flop discarded in Thailand finds its way to Hawaii, and a bottle cast off from Japan's tsunami is soon Alaska's beach litter. With stunning visual impact and an astonishing array of ocean trash, internationally recognized artists create works of art from debris collected from beaches around the world. Much of the oceans' trash is swirling in one of five gyres, which are large systems of rotating ocean cur-rents. Plastic packaging in a throwaway culture finds its way into our ocean biosphere and onto beaches, propelled by the gyres, and now, in this compelling book and related exhibition, into the hands of artists. This book, which explores the relationship between humans and the ocean in a contemporary culture of con-sumption, offers an international perspective on a pressing environmental problem.