havoc away fromour direct line of sight. Giant gyres of marine debris are accumulating in far-flung oceans and seas. Microplastics have been found in Antarctic ice and deep-sea sediments. Plastic has even been discovered near the peak of Mount Everest. To hasten the public’s response to what can seem like an impending catastrophe, plastic’s visibility is sometimes forced upon us by social actors. Last year, Greenpeace dumped more than half a tonne of plastic waste outside 10 Downing Street to make visible the grotesque amount of plastic rubbish that the UK sends overseas every 30 seconds. Also in 2021, Ali Tabrizi’s documentary Seaspiracy confronted Netflix’s audiences with the stark images of plastic pollution caused by discarded fishing nets and equipment in our oceans. These ultravisual efforts work to arrest audiences’ emotions, thus sparking waves of ‘mainstreammalcontent’ on social media platforms and stimulating a conversation among consumers. Though useful, it should not take massmediatised outrage and popular reactiveness to challenge plastic’s invisibility and demand change from industry and government. Sustainability must work from preemptive not just retroactive measures. Debate and transformative action will be best served from instituting mindfulness of plastic’s presence in our consumption environments and markets long before its problems become visible. Context-specific education, intervention, and regulationmust pre-emptivelymake visible the plastic materials and objects that accompany us on our many consumption journeys before those same items end up causing trouble later. Take the UK’s summer music festivals, for example. Abandoned festival tents account for an estimated 900 tonnes of plastic waste each year alone. That’s not counting themany other cheap and disposable artefacts bound up in the festival experience, fromponchos, sleeping bags and foldup chairs, to beer cups, clamshell food containers, and water bottles. To prevent an escalating issue, retailers must be discouraged frommarketing items like tents as single-use consumables and both organisers and festival-goers should be educated and incentivised to be mindful of their plastic footprint. Likewise, in the build-up to seasonal celebrations over winter, the streets and homes of Britain are transformed into Christmas spectacles, adorned with artificial trees, lights and decorations, and kitchen cupboards and fridges are stocked with self-indulgent food and drinks. Only after the celebrations does plasticmake an appearance when it materialises through the volume of food and gift packaging that fills household waste bins. These instances show us how easy it is to take the growing prevalence of plastic in our everyday lives for granted and how quickly we can cast aside our attitudes towards waste and pollution. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 17 Dr CharlotteHadley is a Research Associate in theDepartment of Marketing. Dr James Cronin and Dr Alexandros Skandalis are Senior Lecturers in theDepartment of Marketing. c.hadley2@lancaster.ac.uk j.cronin@lancaster.ac.uk; a.skandalis@lancaster.ac.uk
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTI5NzM=