ETHYL The whale
Crissy Field, San Francisco, CA // Santa Fe Community College, NM
Recycled #2 plastic and steel, 82’ x 17’ x 12’
Collaboration with Joel Dean Stockdill • Managed by Building 180 • Commissioned by Monterey Bay Aquarium • Currently owned by Meow Wolf
In 2018, Joel Dean Stockdill and I, represented by Building 180, partnered with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Hub Strategy San Francisco and The National Park Services in San Francisco, California, USA to come up with an idea that would stop people, get their attention and make them think about the problem of plastic. Together, we built, Ethyl, an 82-foot-long blue whale made entirely out of High Density Polyethylene waste, a commonly used plastic, to talk about one of the most important issues we are currently facing—plastic trash.
The project was built around the statistic that “Every nine minutes, 300,000 pounds of plastic—the weight of an adult blue whale—ends up in the ocean. “
The sources of ocean plastic pollution are legion—we’re simply producing more plastic than we can handle. Many plastics aren’t recyclable, and even if your plastic makes it to the blue bin, only 9% of plastic is ultimately recycled. Plastic waste is a really complicated issue. But what’s clear is this: We need to act now to leave the world better for the next generation of kids and whales. We hope that facing this challenge head-on will inspire people to take “porpoise”-full action and start conversations that can create change.
Ethyl was made entirely out of HDPE #2 plastic that was collected from waste management centers around the San Francisco Bay Area. More details on the process below.
In 2019, Ethyl was purchased by Meow Wolf and moved to Santa Fe Community College for permanent display.
Ethyl holds the Guinness Book World Record for the largest recycled plastic sculpture ever made.
This short video was presented at many Film Festivals across the US and received A Show for a Changes’ Social Impact Award in 2018.
HOW WE TURNED Plastic Waste into a BLue Whale:
We turned our studio into a “recycling” center built with waste & simple tools. In this “recycling center” we processed approximately 4,000 lbs. of plastic waste. This was a way for us to gain an intimate understanding of the recycling process both to learn about why the plastic recycling infrastructure cannot keep up and how we can create more local recycling solutions. The process was informed and inspired by the Precious Plastics Movement . We wanted to make the process as simple as possible to demonstrate that small-scale, high impact waste management is possible and not necessarily something that has to be done on an industrial scale.
Step 1: Sourcing
We sourced our material from local Material Recovery Facilities or “Recycling Centers” in the San Francisco Area such as, Green Waste Management, El Cerrito Recycling Center, & Berkeley Recycling Center.
Step 2: Sorting
All plastic was sorted by type and by color. It is important to sort according to resin code, as each type of plastic has specific recycling conditions. For the whale we only worked with #2 High Density Polyethylene because it is one of the simplest and safest plastics to work with.
Step 3: Material Prep
Next, each item would be cleaned of all labels, extraneous plastic & filth. All plastic was hand washed & processed. We developed a water filtration system to process and recycle the waste water with a local company, Plavel Water. After the material was cleaned it is shredded or cut into small pieces.
Step 4: Melting & Molding
All the plastic bits are then placed into an oven to melt and then pressed into a mold. The colors were arranged to maximize the blue whale color pallet, while allowing the other colors to act as filler material.
Step 5: Structure
While we were prepping the skin, the structure we deigned with the help of RBHU Engineering was fabricated by Fineline Metals. We worked closely with the fabricators to ensure we could sculpt a metal substructure that would be the right dimensions to provide accurate whale shapes.
Step 6: Put it all together
Using a variety of methods we put all the pieces together to make a whale! We used waste HDPE 55 gallon barrels to make the ventral grooves and mouth and stylize the eye.
Find our more about the process here
Photo by Kate Russell, courtesy Meow Wolf
Media
VIDEO:
Meow Wolf made two mini documentaries about Ethyl (below). Both the Meow Wolf and Monterey Bay(above) mini- documentaries showed at over 15 film festival around the world.
ARTICLES:
https://meowwolf.com/blob/meow-wolf-sfcc-recycled-whale-sculpture
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2019/5/life-size-whale-made-of-recycled-plastic-to-educate-people-about-ocean-pollutio-574893/
https://www.sfcc.edu/ethyl-the-whale/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ethyl-the-whale
https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/blog/post/santa-fe-ethyl-the-whale-sculpture/
https://www.good.is/the-planet/good10-earth-issue-the-art-ethyl-ocean-plastic-sculpture
https://seedlinginnovations.com/ethyl-the-whale