Khanhn’t Do Plastic: An Independent Research

According to Nature Medicine on February 3rd, 2025, high concentrations of micro-plastics have been found in human brains, the study tested for micro-plastic accumulation in deceased subjects with the concentration in the brain being significantly higher than in the liver and kidney, and increased in the brain by 50% from 2016-2024. Although the direct connections between health and microplastic concentration are still being studied, this proves that the plastic humans are exposed to daily is making its way into our biological system in growing amounts. In recent years, big corporations and companies have promoted themselves as “environmentally friendly” or “recyclable” but the Plastic Pollution Coalition revealed on May 16, 2022, only 2 (PET, HDPE) out of 7 types of plastic can be recycled, not counting mixed plastics and even then there is no guarantee your plastic will be recycled. CBS News on June 28, 2024, emphasized out of the 48 million tons of plastic waste generated in the U.S.; only 5%-6% is recycled, according to the Department of Energy. The rest ends up in landfills or is burned.

Davis Allen, an investigative researcher with the Center for Climate Integrity, shared that while these companies can’t hide the existence of plastic waste even if they want to, they create lies about how we could solve it, “recycling”, knowing the technical and economic limitations that make plastics unrecyclable. The Science Advances study collected over five years (2018-2022), from 84 countries, found 56 companies are responsible for 50% of the world's plastic pollution, of which the top five are The Coca-Cola Company (11%), PepsiCo (5%), Nestlé (3%), Danone (3%) and Altria-Philip Morris International (2%). As corporations continue to push plastic into more products and areas of the economy; support single-use consumerism; deny the negative environmental and human health effects of plastic, pretend that widespread recycling of plastics is possible, lobby; advertise; oppose efforts to limit single-use plastics,  they push the weight of combating plastic pollution, climate change as a whole, on the individual. This only becomes a vigorous cycle where consumers look to companies to be environmentally conscious, and companies push the blame on consumers to know better. Ultimately, individuals are blindsided by the consequences of buying and using single-use plastic, as companies exploit consumers’ ignorance to make a profit and “ban” even the notion of reducing or reusing the consumer’s repository. 

The research establishes a concept of a “Big Brother”, a powerful oligarchy system that is causing climate change consequences (like heat waves, natural disasters, and landfills) and preventing our users (heroes) from reaching carrying reducing, and reusing activities. Thus the heroes are training by going through the simulation of the heat maze and landfills, to pick up the discarded pieces, put them back together, add food to the bowl, and then get ready to come back to the real world and apply what the learned in their real life. 

This research allows me to consider sustainability in immersive experience design, To be aware of the single-use plastic in making the experience, and to build things that are sustainable and/or reusable that can be transported back to Austin and displayed. Even better to repurpose trash or thrown-away items to give them new life and redefine the concept of “new”.