Photos

The Plastic Project

Tim Nunn is on a mission to rid the seas of plastic... and take arrestingly beautiful photos

You’ve surely seen viral videos of Hawaiian seabirds dying with stomachs full of plastic or heard of the massive floating plastic islands in the middle of the great oceanic gyres.

But you needn’t venture far to understand the scale of the problem. A trip to pretty much any coast, anywhere will reveal a disturbing amount of marine litter just above the high water mark.

Perhaps most depressing is that the more pristine or remote the coast you visit, the more waste you might notice along the shoreline (holiday resorts tend to pay to clean up their beaches… at least during the tourist season).

Enter Tim Nunn, professional surf/adventure photographer of note, who has spent a considerable amount of time in high latitude wilderness surf locales, and decided to embark on The Plastic Project as a result.

Here are some of Tim’s images and observations so far.

A rare moment of perfection on the south coast of Cornwall, one of the most affected places by plastic pollution

Facing into the Greenland Sea, you'd think this remote beach would be clean, but the colourful plastic lining the shore tells another story.

There is nothing between here and the north pole, it's miles from civilisation, yet it is strewn with our rubbish

Oldshoremore on the west coast of Scotland, a collection point for Atlantic rubbish

“The problem is the general population are numb to stats, we get them rammed down our necks everyday. But images are irrefutable, immediate and have the power to change peoples perceptions of the world”

A sub Arctic peak, so pristine, but look closer and the gully in front is not only full of wood but also plastic

“We’re not just talking surfers here, we’re aiming to reach everyone, to show even the people furthest away from the coast how incredible the ocean is, and to make everyone realise that their actions every day can make a difference to end marine litter.”