CEO of the everwave foundation and climate activist, Marcella Hansch, talks to Dr. Mateo Kries, director of the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, about the museum’s exhibition entitled Plastic: Remaking Our World and gets his thoughts on the topic of plastic and how it might be dealt with in the future.  

Every year more than 11 million tons of plastic waste end up in the world´s oceans. This is an environmental catastrophe that leaves harmful microplastic particles in our soil, our waters and ultimately in our bodies and those of every creature on our planet. Although admirable work has been done in inventing potential solutions, including by social business everwave, a large-scale, non-harmful way of getting rid of all this plastic has yet to be found. 

So how did we get here? Is plastic itself really the problem, or are we just dealing with it in the wrong way? An exhibition entitled Plastic: Remaking Our World has been created by the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein. In this second episode of our Together For Sustainability podcast series, Marcella Hansch talks to the museum’s director Dr. Mateo Kries. 

The exhibition looks at the entire history of plastic, from its invention in the late 19th century when, as with many inventions of the industrial age, it was seen as having infinite possible uses and no negative consequences. Through film installations and other displays, visitors are left in doubt as to the gravity of those consequences. As is made clear, even before the age of single-use plastics, the drive for the raw materials of plastic production was the cause of conflicts. The shine was coming off plastic even before the current crisis was evident. 

The Vitra Design Museum designed the exhibition to include education on the state we’re in and how we might emerge from it. Dr. Kries insights into the need for a cyclical approach to design and the collaborations that will be needed to manage the plastic waste crisis are both stimulating and relevant to our wider conversation on sustainability.

The podcast series Together For Sustainability will focus on collaborations that offer positive impacts on the problems of climate change and the exploitation of our planet. The range of expert guests from the worlds of academia, business and decision-makers will demonstrate that the solutions lie in collective effort.