Litter Pickers
Animals Adapting to the Anthropocene
A zine visualising some of the weird and wonderful ways animals reuse litter in their environments.
Previously exhibited and part of the permanent zine library at Milestone Studios
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.
The science
behind the pages…
House Finch
House finches are urban birds that have been seen to use littered cigarette butts to help line their nests. Its theorised that they do this to help reduce parasites in their nests. Sadly, there are toxins in the cigarette butts that may counteract the benefits of of using them as parasite repellents.
Hermit Crab
As hermit crabs grow, they grow out of shells and have to find new ones to use. Crazily, they have been observed using plastic waste left on beaches as alternatives for shells. One of the reasons they may choose litter over real shells is to help them camouflage into their overly polluted environment.
Benthic Octopus
For decade, octopuses have been seen reusing underwater litter for shelter but this is increasing, this may be due to the higher levels of underwater debris. Its most common for octopuses to shelter in glass items, and they have even been observed to lay eggs in them.