Steppes Beyond

How to convey the burgeoning issue of ocean plastics in a new and engaging way to a public audience? At the invitation of Steppes Travel, we brought a new ocean plastics installation to the Royal Geographical Society in 2017 for the Steppes Beyond Festival.

Created with a team from Anthropologie, and using their former shop window replica whales made from recycled materials, we dressed them with plastic bottle tops collected by Rame Peninsula Beach Care - part of a chain 1.3km long that contains 65,000 bottle tops have gathered from Cornish beaches over a three month period.

In addition plastics were gathered by our campaigns manager Clare Osborn from her role in Paddle Pickup, an all women canoe and kayak environmental expedition that crossed England.

Our installation drew audiences along with a host of keynote speakers at the event, such as Simon Reeve, Chris Packham, Steve Backshall, Sylvia Earle, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Doug Allan, Jo Ruxton of A Plastic Ocean, plus artist Mandy Barker.