The Plastic Trail (A&L Conjecture)

According to NPR, “less than 10 percent of plastic has ever been recycled. But the public has known little about these difficulties” (Sullivan, 2020). The Plastic Trail is a game that is designed to solve exactly this: how can we better inform the public on where their plastic items go?

The game takes players on a journey as if they were a plastic bottle. From deep under the ocean, to chemical labs, to market shelves, and so on and so forth. The goal of this game is for players to strategically maneuver their plastic water bottle into a recycling facility and be remade into a different product. Based on this 10% statistic, it should on average, take players 10 tries to succeed. Loosely based on the game The Oregon Trail, players who fail will be forced to start again.

So what does failure look like? Failure is supposed to mimic real-life recycling pitfalls.

Maybe the “recycling bin” the bottle is thrown into is the same as the trash can. Maybe they are improperly cleaned and end up in the landfill. Maybe they are exported to the Global South. Or maybe they are incinerated and end up in the atmosphere. Or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The purpose of these “failed” journeys are to teach players how plastic plays different roles throughout the social strata. What does waste colonialism look like? And how does your lifestyle affect it?

References

Sullivan, L. (2020, September 11). How big oil misled the public into believing plastic would be recycled. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled