“Forget the future. The really scary thing is the present. We still have fish and decent fishing in parts, for now, but things are changing apace. Places that used to be pristine are now trashed and places that are thought of as pristine are vulnerable to plastic pollution and its evil twin climate change. “You should have been here last century or the century before,” the old timers say.

The ancient Greek meaning of ‘plastic’ is to shape or mold and when it was first discovered some 60 years ago humanity got seriously excited about the world we could mold for ourselves. Who could blame us? Plastic was and still is seriously useful. It allowed us to do so many things we could never do before, so we worked it into all our systems. We did this so well that now it seems impossible to extricate ourselves from the shit we have gotten ourselves in to.”

For the full story from issue 12’s deep dive into plastic, get stuck in to the mag below.

All photos by Oliver Kruger.