Ben Von Wong is a photographer looking to create meaningful work. His latest campaign is called Mermaids Hate Plastic. Did you know that plastic takes 450 years to decompose?! That means that virtually every piece of plastic created still exists somewhere. Frightening. By 2050 there will more plastic than fish in the sea! It doesn’t have to be that way though. By making a conscious effort to use less plastic, we can change the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean.

The scary thing about plastic is that it’s so widely used. Worse still is the fact that most plastic is only used once before being thrown away. With the beautiful Mermaids Hate Plastic campaign, Ben Von Wong found an interesting way to spark a conversation around plastic pollution.

The average American uses 167 plastic bottles a year, so in 60 years they will have used 10,000 plastic bottles. To create this shoot, Von Wong borrowed 10,000 plastic bottles from Tomra, a waste management centre. To give you an idea of the scale of the project, the plastic bottles arrived in a 50-foot trailer! Volunteers rallied to clean, de-cap and de-label them.

The 10,000 plastic bottles made a sea of plastic. To make the campaign unique, Von Won added a mermaid. The Mermaids Hate Plastic campaign is the right combination of extravagant, unique and different. This amazing campaign was shot in a warehouse with the camera hooked up to a rig on the ceiling. Here’s a look behind the scenes:

We urge you to commit to using less plastic and sign the petition here.

By drawing our attention to how single use plastic is destroying the ocean we can change our habits. By committing to using less plastic we can positively change the future of our oceans.

Want to get involved? Here’s 3 things you can do:

1. Start a conversation about single use plastics and encourage your friends and family to take the pledge to re-use.
2. Carry around a reusable water bottle.
3. Consider whether to accept plastic items like straws and bags that are offered to you.

Do it for yourself, the planet, and the mermaids.

Source: Von Wong