Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Plastic bottles fill the Cibeles fountain as a way of calling attention to the environmental impact of disposable plastics. Luzinterruptus is an anonymous art collective in Madrid that’s been making installation art with plastic waste all over the world. They started producing political and illegal art works and now, ironically, this installation is legit and paid for by City Hall in Madrid. They took the plastic trash from a town and placed it in the most beautiful areas of the city, the fountains of Neptune and Cibeles in Centro so everyone would contemplate on what they are doing with one-use-plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2692105.TIF
  • Informal plastic waste worker community called Bajardiha. These are folks from West Bengal that go out early in the morning to collect and then start sorting plastic around 10AM. Renew Oceans sponsored a play in this community to raise awareness about hygiene and other issues associated with the plastic waste informal industry.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-3.tif
  • Multi-state grassroots environmental activists rally against mountain top removal in Charleston, West Virginia.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023649.jpg
  • Children living in the Dharavi slums outside Mumbai.
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  • The Dharavi slum area of Mumbai.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386460.TIF
  • Children living in the Dharavi slums congregate at their front door. These are the third largest slums in the world.  The world bank is trying to work out an arrangement where all of these squatters will get about twice the space they have now in new buildings, but it is complicated.
    MM7890_20100629_24147.tif
  • A family with a dry well carry water in five-gallon buckets in the back of their pickup truck.
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  • I was photographing this alley because it had plastic trash around 4AM and these two guys came out of their homes and placed their trash on the street… right in front of me. This is the basic problem… Varanasi has government trash workers but not nearly enough for the 1.2 million population. So people put their trash on the street and wait for informal trash workers/recyclers or some government worker to come by and clean up the street. It’s not a great system.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-16.tif
  • Informal plastic waste industry community called Lahartara. Group of workers in front of living space are left to right: Zakir Seikh, Heena Bibi, Parveen Bibi, Bhalo Bibi, Alamin Seikh, and Suck Seikh. They moved a bit in and out of this order but the releases have their photos on them so I’ll sort the exact order according to edit. The photo with only one individual carrying big bag of plastic is Alamin
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-15.tif
  • Dashasumedha ghat on the Ganges. This ghat is central to the ghats that run all along the river in Varanasi. Religious tourists bath and send votive candles out into the river that are full of plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-13.tif
  • Dashasumedha ghat on the Ganges. This ghat is central to the ghats that run all along the river in Varanasi. Religious tourists bath and send votive candles out into the river that are full of plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-12.tif
  • Informal plastic waste worker makes his rounds in very early morning in Varanasi, India because the city temperatures rise in unbearable heat during the day. This is the Beniyapark neighborhood. Varanasi has government trash workers but not nearly enough for the 1.2 million population and all the tourists. So people put their trash on the street and wait for informal trash workers/recyclers or some government worker to come by and clean up the street. It’s not a great system. Pappu is part of the informal trash picker system and he collects plastic waste to recycle.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-4.tif
  • Plastic waste in the Ganges River at Varanasi, India adds to sewage, animal and industrial waste and pesticides making it one of the planet’s most polluted rivers. Dashasumedha ghat on the Ganges. This ghat is central to the ghats that run all along the river in Varanasi. Religious tourists bath and send votive candles out into the river that are full of plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702760-1.tif
  • The town of Portales, New Mexico with a community without well water.
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  • Bedsprings once served as a corral near Elida, New Mexico.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481078.TIF
  • Center-pivot irrigation systems etch circles of grain and other plants.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8429_2481070.JPG
  • Plastic trash in Freedom Island's ecotourism area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703572.JPG
  • Plastic trash in Freedom Island's ecotourism area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703567.JPG
  • Plastic trash in the Pasig River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703561.JPG
  • Plastic trash in Freedom Island's ecotourism area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703550.JPG
  • An underwater photo captures a piece of red plastic floating in Manila Bay. Over 500,000 tons of plastic trash wash out through this bay every year, contributing  to the 10 million metric tons of plastic seeps into the oceans annually, mostly from Asia.  The bay is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703541.TIF
  • A bottled water plant in Hollis, Maine, has reduced the plastic in its half-liter bottles by 62 percent since 1994.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703535.JPG
  • Women gather compost from restaurants and stores to be re-used by farmers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703524.JPG
  • Women gather compost from restaurants and stores to be re-used by farmers.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703522.JPG
  • Men from a food internet ordering company deliver in re-used glass jars as an attempt to reduce one-use-plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703519.JPG
  • A program to get standardized bottles for recycling to replace plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703518.JPG
  • A bottle washing plant so bottles can be re-used instead of recycled.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703517.JPG
  • A bottle washing plant so bottles can be re-used instead of recycled.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703511.JPG
  • An internet-connected-composting-urinal in the bar district of Nantes, France.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703507.JPG
  • A billboard encouraging people to use recycled glass bottles to carry their liquids instead of using plastic packaging.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2703502.JPG
  • A community composter with a green roof to gather water used during the process.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702871.JPG
  • A woman practices the zero waste lifestyle
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702870.JPG
  • A couple who live in public housing practice the zero waste lifestyle
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702867.JPG
  • A couple who live in public housing practice the zero waste lifestyle
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702865.JPG
  • A woman, who leads a zero waste lifestyle, recycles up plastic trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702857.JPG
  • A woman, who leads a zero waste lifestyle, recycles up plastic trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702856.JPG
  • In an effort to eliminate plastic waste, a restaurant has all of their wine, beer, soft drinks delivered in large stainless steel tanks that they keep fresh with pressurized gas system.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702854.JPG
  • A recycling plant in San Francisco, California.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702852.JPG
  • A woman, who leads a zero waste lifestyle, brushes her teeth.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702850.JPG
  • Plastic statues collected from a recycling plant in San Francisco, California.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702848.JPG
  • Plastic bottles collected from a recycling plant in San Francisco, California.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702847.JPG
  • A conveyor belt carries mixed plastic to an optical sorter.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702846.JPG
  • A San Francisco recycling plant handles 500 to 600 tons daily.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702845.JPG
  • A San Francisco recycling plant handles 500 to 600 tons daily.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702844.JPG
  • A recycling plant in San Francisco, California.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702843.JPG
  • Trash pickers in Bantar Gebang dumpsite outside Jakarta Indonesia work in one of the biggest landfills in the world. Security guards say 100 trash pickers that work around the tractors have died over the course of the dumps lifetime. There are thousands of trash pickers, and the only material they were scavenging was plastic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702837.TIF
  • Trash pickers looking for plastics at the dump.
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  • Plastic balloons are manufactured.
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  • Plastic recycling.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702831.JPG
  • A woman packages plastic toy cars.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702827.JPG
  • Plastic recycling in Bangladesh.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702822.JPG
  • Plastic recycling in Bangladesh.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702821.JPG
  • Squatters on the banks of the Buriganga River. Informal plastic waste workers sort plastic which is technically an illegal venture since they don’t pay taxes. Workers were hesitant to give much information fearing I might be surveying for the government. The Buriganga River flows into the Bay of Bengal.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702817.TIF
  • Plastic recycling in Bangladesh.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702815.JPG
  • After sheets of clear plastic trash have been washed in the Buriganga River, they are spread out to dry to be sold to a recycler.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702813.JPG
  • After sheets of clear plastic trash have been washed in the Buriganga River, a man spreads them out to dry to be sold to a recycler.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702811.JPG
  • Workers at a balloon factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, dip boards with sticks into a mix of colorful polymers leaving them in the sun.  As they begin to dry, they are rolled up and the material forms the end of a blow-up balloon.   These are “home-made” and  artisanal, but still “single-use-plastic.”
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702808.TIF
  • Sheets of clear plastic trash are washed in the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702804.JPG
  • Plastics recyclers on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702802.JPG
  • Colored chips of plas¬≠tic, collected, washed and sorted by hand, dry on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702801.JPG
  • A family removes labels from plastic bottles, sorting green from clear ones to sell to a scrap dealer.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702798.JPG
  • After sheets of clear plastic trash have been washed in the Buriganga River, a woman spreads them out to dry to be sold to a recycler.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702795.JPG
  • After sheets of clear plastic trash have been washed in the Buriganga River, women spread them out to dry to be sold to a recycler.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702793.JPG
  • Burning trash on the bank of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702792.JPG
  • Bundles of plastic for recycling.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702789.JPG
  • Trash fills the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702788.JPG
  • A woman sorts through trash on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702787.JPG
  • Boats and trash on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702785.JPG
  • Boats and trash on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702784.JPG
  • Boats and trash on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702783.JPG
  • A dog, boats, and trash on the banks of the Buriganga River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702777.JPG
  • In Dhaka, Bangladesh, laborers sort through piles of discarded plastic bottles at a recycling center. Plastic waste and global warming are companion threats. People’s need for clean drinking water increases as temperatures rise. The size of this center in Dhaka is equivalent to three football fields. In the winter when I made this photograph, only one of the football fields was filled with plastic waste. In the summer when everyone drinks more bottled water because of the excessive heat in a Bangladesh summer, all three football fields are filled with plastic waste. The slough next to this informal factory is filled with the overburden that is either shoved away or is blown by the wind into the neighboring watershed.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702769.TIF
  • In Dhaka, Bangladesh, laborers sort through a huge pile of discarded plastic bottles.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702768.JPG
  • In Dhaka, Bangladesh, laborers sort through a huge pile of discarded plastic bottles.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702767.JPG
  • Early morning in the Dharavi Slums of Mumbai, people walk along the train tracks that are lined with piles of trash. The third largest slum in the world and one of India’s homes to plastic recycling, garbage piles up, bags blow in, and pickers are drawn there to sort through it daily.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702766.TIF
  • In Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, trash pickers looking for plastics begin their daily rounds at the dump.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702762.JPG
  • In Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, trash pickers looking for plastics begin their daily rounds at the dump.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702761.JPG
  • In Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, trash pickers looking for plastics begin their daily rounds at the dump.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702757.JPG
  • In Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, trash pickers looking for plastics begin their daily rounds at the dump.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702756.JPG
  • In Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, trash pickers looking for plastics begin their daily rounds at the dump.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702752.JPG
  • In Kalyan, on the outskirts of Mumbai, trash pickers looking for plastics begin their daily rounds at the dump.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702750.JPG
  • Plastic sorting in Mumbai's Dharavi slum.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702730.JPG
  • Plastic sorting, shredding, melting, and product production in Mumbai's Dharavi slum.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702726.JPG
  • Plastic sorting in the Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702724.JPG
  • Plastic sorting in the Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702723.JPG
  • A trash collector on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702720.JPG
  • Plastic trash in the Estero de Binondo stream in Chinatown area of Manila.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702719.JPG
  • A trash collector on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702714.JPG
  • A trash collector on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702713.JPG
  • Trash scavenger area on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702704.JPG
  • Trash scavenger area on Jacinto-Vitas street in Baseco.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702703.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702701.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702698.JPG
  • Plastic bottles fill a recycling facility in Valenzuela, Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702693.JPG
  • Plastic bottles are sorted at a recycling facility in Valenzuela, Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702685.JPG
  • Plastic bottles are shredded at a recycling facility in Valenzuela, Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702682.JPG
  • Plastic bottles are sorted at a recycling facility in Valenzuela, Philippines.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702679.JPG
  • Estero de Binondo stream in the Chinatown area of Manila is covered with itinerant homes to the degree that the stream is no longer visible. It is choked with plastic waste. Hardly believable, the stream in this photo is on the left side of the frame. Itinerant residents will be relocated to Bulacan, a settlement in the north. Although the Pasig was cleaned up with major effort, plastic still flows from here into the river making the Philippines one of the top three countries the world a contributor to polluting the oceans with plastics.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702675.TIF
  • Piles of trash pollute the Estero de Binondo stream in Chinatown area of Manila.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702672.JPG
  • Children play on the shore of Manila Bay which is polluted by household waste, plastics, and other trash.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8515_2702659.JPG
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