Litter Pickers
Animals Adapting to the Anthropocene
A zine visualising some of the weird and wonderful ways animals reuse litter in their environments.
Litter Pickers the zine was created to incorporate environmental science, collage and comedy. I wanted to portray some of the amazing ways that animals have adapted to having human litter in their environments. The aim wasn’t to create a harsh anti-littering campaign, but instead to make a satire joke by showing that animals, in some ways, are more eco-friendly than humans.
My litter picking mascot, the octopus, was created to emphasise this joke by using visuals that we can associate with human litter pickers.
Click the pages inside for links to the scientific articles!
House finches are city birds that have been seen to use discarded cigarette butts in their nests! There is evidence that they do this to help reduce ectoparasites.
As hermit crabs grow, they move ‘houses’ by finding a different shell. However, they have been seen to use litter from the beach instead of a new shell. They will do this if there is not a suitable shell nearby. Humans take shells from beaches and leave litter behind, so the crabs have to make do!
Benthic octopuses have been seen using underwater litter, such as bottle and cans, to take shelter and even lay their eggs in there!
Click the pages inside for links to the scientific articles!