Kim De Wolff

Author: kimdewolff

  • My Day, In Plastic

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    I’ve always been an environmentally minded person. When my father cut down the acre of forest in our backyard, I felt so bad for the trees that I vowed not to speak with him again (I caved sometime after dinner, several hours close enough to eternity for a 10 year old). I stopped eating meat…

  • Plastic Culture & Consumption

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    It’s summer teaching time! A selection of books inspiring my senior seminar (COGN 150) on the role of plastic and plastic things in everyday life. I’m super excited about the class and can’t wait to see my students’ final projects. The details: Plastic Culture & Consumption Syllabus

  • Kamilo beach lost & found

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    Google sleuths and polyglots! I need your help solving a collection of (s)pacific mysteries. Instincts honed in the 80s served me well in identifying the green lump of plastic above as a battlecat saddle from He-Man (Panthor’s actually based on the colour), but do you have any ideas about the rest of these objects found…

  • Fake Grass on a Plastic Beach

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    My recent research trip to the Big Island, Hawaii included a pilgrimage to Kamilo beach, near South Point. Kamilo is not a tourist beach; it is far from towns and houses, five miles down a very rough 4-wheel drive road. And it is covered in plastic waste. Like many people involved with plastic pollution, I…

  • Sea Dragon Reunion

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                                I spent a happy past weekend helping out with Algalita special events at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point. In addition to extra big display tables and a lecture and book signing by Charlie, the Sea Dragon and crew were docked…

  • A Spoonful of Absurdity

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                                              Last weekend I was fortunate to accompany an Algalita member giving a talk for a local women’s group. It was a great presentation, covering all kinds of marine plastic problems and Algalita’s efforts to…

  • Occupy Trash Island?

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    Making slides for a recent conference presentation, I googled across this image: Intrigued, I click though to its source, an article titled “Paradise Recycled: Architects Dream of Turning Great Pacific Garbage Patch Into Habitable Island,” which outlines plans for a floating metropolis to be made from plastic waste gathered from the sea. I gaze in…

  • Dangerous Species

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    This nature-culture crossing poster comes to me from Hanie (thanks lady!).  I like it because it offers, if only in jest, the possibility of waste ‘acting’ like other dangerous creatures of the sea. Roaming free, bottles, bags and batteries threaten not humans (as goes the usual understanding of ‘dangerous’), but the wellbeing of the ocean:…

  • Leeks in the Lab

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    As I type up my field notes, I am constantly reminded of the challenges of conducting scientific research on a sailboat designed for racing. Take the following conversation, in which I attempt to procure ingredients for a giant pot of lentil soup: “Hey Hank, are there any more leeks?” “I think there’s still some in…

  • The Last Straw

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    Plastic is so entangled with everything we do, that is seems pretty much impossible to stop using it cold turkey. My computer is plastic, my contacts, even my toilet seat. The last time I purchased eyeglasses I was told that getting my prescription filled with actual glass lenses would leave me with spectacles so heavy…