A few months ago, while walking across campus, enjoying the rare rays of winter sunshine, I came across a plastic bag tangled in the branches of a tree. I stopped, puzzled, and stared for a second. Where had it come from? Why had no one noticed it? The first concrete thought that hardened in my head was that I had to take pictures of this. I rushed back to my dorm, grabbed my camera, and made my way back to the billowing plastic bag. And of course, I took pictures. After looking through the images, I squeezed the lens cap back into place and went to class.
I was, however, forgetting one very important thing: the plastic bag still clung to the branches of that tree. I could have jumped to remove it from the wood hands that had captured it, but I didn’t. Part of me was interested to see what would happen to it if I didn't interfere. Would someone come along and pluck it down? Would anyone even notice at all? I became invested in the story of the bag, as if it was a subject for a documentary.
My reasoning was that, if I interfered, the story of the plastic bag would be over. But from that point onwards I became complicit in whatever environmental effects that plastic bag could have. Within this is a paradox: documenting such a thing allows for its story and implications to be understood, but it does not mitigate any of the potential impacts the plastic bag could have on the environment. This leads me to question the ethics of my actions, and how they might be indicative of a greater mindset in environmental storytelling, as well as what this might mean for Precious Plastic DePauw.
When it came time to create the website for Precious Plastic DePauw, I immediately thought of the pictures I had taken that first day I’d seen the plastic bag. In fact, one of those images became the primary picture on the website’s homepage. But does knowing the context of the image somehow change its connotations? Plastic recycling, and the Precious Plastic project, after all, are built upon the foundation of reducing plastic pollution, and yet the first thing you see when you go on the website is the plastic bag that I did not take down, despite the fact that it had the potential to cause more harm if I did not remove it than if I did. The irony of this is that the context of the image is entirely at odds with what we intended it to portray. This acts as a representation of the ways in which an image can be used to foster a single story, which is reminiscent of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2009 TED Talk, in which she discusses the dangers of the single story. In the case of the plastic bag, its single story is that all plastic bags are nature-destroying and polluting forces. This isn’t untrue, but it isn’t the whole truth, either. Plastic bags do pollute the environment, but paper bags do, too. In terms of emissions on the production end, paper bags are actually much more harmful.
Relating the single story to media, I think that the nature of photography and visual imagery is a vital factor to consider. First of all, the picture I took depicts only one moment in time. Without knowing the context of the picture, every other moment that the plastic bag has existed, and will exist, is unknown to the viewer. This may lead to the formation of assumptions, which are likely to be based upon the single story that is associated with plastic bags. The single story being that all plastic bags destroy the environment. Furthermore, when it comes to both film and photography, images and videos are always manufactured. Looking at an image or watching a video may give you a sense of what it might be like to see or experience what is depicted, but only in the way that the photographer or filmmaker wants you to.
For example, in a short film in the Futurestates series by PBS, narrated by Werner Herzog, a drifting plastic bag is given a voice. While watching the film, the audience begins to connect with, and even feel bad for, the plastic protagonist. Furthermore, blogger, Kathy Frederick, named and gendered a plastic bag stuck in a tree outside her window, and blogged about her (yes, the plastic bag is a ‘she,’ and her name is Windy) for over two years. Windy garnered a cult following over that time. The media used in these cases intentionally found ways to cause the audience to connect with a plastic bag. This opposes the common single story associated with plastic bags, but in a sense, serves to perpetuate another. That plastic bags drift forever, alone in the wind. That they should be empathized with. Either way, a single story persists.
Is there a middle ground? If so, how can we find it? And what does this mean moving forward? Who is responsible for the creation of the single story? Is it the person who took the image, the person who used it, or its audience? It seems as though both the media and its audience hold a certain amount of responsibility for how visual media is consumed. What seems most important, for both media and viewers, is to strive to understand that the framework of every plastic bag, bottle, can, pen, cup, and straw, every image, video, and sentence, is woven together with the strings of multiple, interlocked stories.
FUTURESTATESTV, director. Plastic Bag. YouTube, YouTube, 8 Oct. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuJ31bu01mM&t=691s.
Gura, David. “'Windy,' A Plastic Bag Caught In A Tree, Is Kathy Frederick's Obsession.” NPR, NPR, 14 June 2010, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/06/14/127838433/-windy-a-plastic-bag-caught-in-a-tree-is-kathy-frederick-s-obsession.
QuestionUreReality, director. American Beauty. YouTube, YouTube, 17 May 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qssvnjj5Moo.
Myers, Scott. “Great Scene: ‘American Beauty.’” Go Into The Story, Go Into The Story, 29 Aug. 2008, gointothestory.blcklst.com/great-scene-american-beauty-437302a1a16a.
Staller, Jan, and Rebecca Altman. “American Beauties.” Topic, Topic, 16 Mar. 2019, www.topic.com/american-beauties.
Plumer, Brad. “Plastic Bags, or Paper? Here's What to Consider When You Hit the Grocery Store.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/climate/plastic-paper-shopping-bags.html.
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