Museum of Plastic in NYC highlights sustainability issues

In honor of World Ocean Day a pop-up Museum of Plastic has just opened on Saturday June 8 in New York City. The campaign has been produced by Lonely Whale in partnership with HP, Ever & Ever and S'well.

One of the key messages of the campaign is for people to "question how they hydrate." Here we saw stats about the vast numbers of plastic bottles being produced and used once just to transport clean water for sale.

"1 million single-use plastic bottles are sold every minute around the world."

Artwork in this pop-up museum draws attention to just how much money and material goes into these single-use bottles. This piece suggests that our resources could be better spent.

Photographs of sea life by Cristina Mittermeier were on display to capture our imagination and remind us of what's at stake.

A large video wall puts us in the bottom of a trash-filled ocean. On a parallel wall you get to see a healthy sea floor with no floating trash, emphasizing the choices we have.

Displays like this point to solutions for better approaches to drinking water.  S'well, a sponsor of the event, makes insulated bottles that you may already know and use.

Ellen Jackowski, Global Head of Sustainability Strategy and Innovation at HP, another sponsor of the event, has spearheaded the move at HP to begin using recycled ocean-bound plastics.

HP just announced the world's first monitor made with recycled ocean-bound plastics, the HP EliteDisplay E273d Docking Monitor. Each monitor sold contains about the equivalent of three or four recycled 16oz plastic water bottles, spread across 16 different parts of the product.

Ever & Ever is another event sponsor. It's a new bottled water company dedicated to using recycled aluminum for its packaging -- its water is from Montana and filtered with a reverse osmosis process. You can currently buy this water on Amazon for $2 a bottle.

Guests end their tour with an opportunity to view a short documentary about HP's efforts to collect and recycle ocean-bound plastic from Haiti, a venture that also helps create income streams for Haitians who may need such opportunities.