Description:
Recycled Starbucks coffee bags and mixed media
Artist:
Helen Liu
Location:
Crops and Soil Sciences, 3017 Agriculture and Life Sciences Building, OSU Corvallis, OR.
Dimensions:
16” x 16”
Awards:
2018 Carey L. and Glen S. Strome Memorial Art About Agriculture purchase award, sponsored by the late Gayle Strome and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Artist Statement:
"Starbucks' Grounds for Your Garden program is touted by the company as one of its Social Responsibility projects that is good for the planet. Starbucks' customers help the giant corporation add another green feather to its environmental cap by taking home the used coffee grounds and compost them in the garden.
"But, what about those very sturdy, heavy-duty, large plastic bags that once held 5 pounds of coffee beans? While the coffee grounds are good for the garden, the plastic bags are not. After the gardeners take home the coffee grounds, they have to figure out what to do with the bags? Currently, there is no place to recycle them. They must go in the landfill, or the incinerator, depending on the location of the Starbucks coffee shop.
"In my conservative estimate, each coffee shop likely uses a minimum of two bags daily. According to Google, in 2018 there are 28,218 Starbucks coffee shops worldwide. That means atleast 56,436 of these almost indestructible plastic bags are disposed of DAILY. In 365 days, that number is 20,599,140 bags.
"The size of this piece is slightly smaller than one Starbucks bag cut open.
"My art work simply asks Starbucks: What shall we gardeners do with YOUR bags?"
Helen Liu, 2018
Year:
2017