‘Plastikophobia’ aims to scare Singapore into consuming less plastic

The Plastikophobia sculpture was made from 18,000 cups collected from hawker centres in Singapore over two days. Image: Plastikophobia If people were scared of plastic, maybe they wouldn’t use so much of it. That’s the idea behind Plastikophobia , an art installation that launched on Thursday in Singapore that invites people to walk through a claustrophobic sculpture made entirely out of throwaway plastic cups. Eighteen thousand single-use plastic drink cups were collected from Singapore’s famous hawker food centres to make the sculpture, a three and a half metre high tunnel of plastic lit up with LED lights. The exhibit’s creators, Canadian duo Benjamin Von Wong and Laura François, want to get the word ‘Plastikophobia’—which means a fear or aversion to plastic—into the English dictionary, and jolt people into being aware of the waste generated by the country’s Unesco-nominated street food stalls. We wanted people to actually walk through the amount [of waste produced by hawker centres]. Laura François, co-producer, social impact strategist, Plastikophobia The cups were gathered by cleaning staff in 2 days in February from 22 hawker centres dotted all over the country. The number of cups collected, 18,000, is “an extremely conservative estimate” of the amount of […]

Click here to view original web page at ‘Plastikophobia’ aims to scare Singapore into consuming less plastic