Single-use plastic consumption has gone up by 250-300% during the pandemic. And with the United Nations Environmental Assembly coming together in February 2022 to discuss a global plastic treaty, we need to put pressure on world leaders to get the situation under control!

As an artist and activist, I’m always looking for exciting ways to make the boring problem of plastic pollution more interesting. I’ve created campaigns from 168,000 plastic straws, 18,000 plastic cups, and 10,000 plastic bottles. But those projects only raised awareness for individual objects and never pointed to the root cause of the problem: Plastic production.

I knew that I needed to level up my projects, but I just needed to find the right partner willing to take a chance on a brand-new big idea first.

Lucky for me, the Embassy of Canada in France accepted my proposal to build an art installation to raise awareness for plastics. This was my chance to create more than a piece of art. It was my chance to create a symbol inviting the world to #TurnOffThePlasticTap

Our faucet was built from used ventilation ducts scavenged from a building that was about to be demolished. I wanted to embody the spirit of reuse for this entire project. That meant finding folks that believed in the same! The kind folks at Delsan-Aim provided us with access to a building that was about to be demolished so that we could scavenge pieces of ventilation duct to bring our art installation to life.

We found a local fabrication shop called Gaufab Inc to help us transform over 200lbs of ventilation duct into a giant faucet that would fit safely onto the SLC-24 – a forklift that could be found almost anywhere in the world.

Almost every single piece of plastic that has ever been created still exists on this planet. If we don’t do anything about it, it is my nephew’s generation, and every generation after that will have to live with the consequences.

My dad helped me build a small tool out of wood, and a razor blade with the help of a Youtube video that we found online after my friend and fellow artist Aurora Robson recommended it to us. She told us that PET plastics could hold a ton of weight if we kept them thick enough. She wasn’t wrong!

With the help of dozens of volunteers, we spent over a week organizing and preparing the plastics at the headquarters of YAM, a local community organization dedicated to protecting the environment.

So, we could easily set up and tear down the installation within a single day and photograph it in multiple locations!

Millions of tons of unrecyclable and contaminated plastic waste are exported to poorer countries every year. These countries don’t have the facilities to manage the waste, and it often bleeds straight back into our environment. Although it’s hard to do, the best thing we can do is reduce our plastic consumption.

Since the installation was so tall, the cheapest and most efficient way to light up our faucet was using mirrors provided by our volunteers. To help diffuse the light and add a sense of magic on location, we used a simple bee smoker loaded with organic hay (more environmentally friendly than running a generator!)

Volunteers brought whatever lighting they had to the project for us to use. We used everything from MobiLed lights to top-of-the-line broncolor Move packs. We ended up frankensteining three triggers one on top of the other to trigger all of our lights!

All that remained, was for us to wait for the sun and clouds to get into the perfect position.

With more than a truckload of plastic flowing into the ocean every 60 seconds, we need to take our heads out of the sand and start looking beyond beach cleanups. Unless we start by turning off the plastic tap, the problem will only get worst – regardless of how many cleanups we perform!

Every winter, boats here get shrink-wrapped to protect them against the elements. We reached out to a boat repair shop and asked them if we could recover their tarps and they were more than happy to give them to us. They told us that local waste management facilities can’t recycle them.

To ensure that the faucet would be level, my friend Guillaume helped us build a small foundation from upcycled wood that we could place under the forklift. Gaufab installed eyelets into the faucet so we could tie thin matte black guide ropes at a 45-degree angle to guarantee it wouldn’t blow over with a heavy gust of wind.

Over 2/3rds of the world’s plastics end up in landfills like this one. Finding access to a landfill was a challenge, but we managed to find a local family-owned company called Groupe Bellemare to help us out. They recycle 75% of the waste they receive into new products, with the landfill reserved exclusively for materials too hard to recycle.

Hundreds of volunteers contributed thousands of hours to bring this project to life. Volunteers came from all walks of life. Young and old. Friends and strangers. Some spent hours helping while others like my parents spent weeks! One thing is for sure, this project would never have happened without the help of so many rockstars.

Credits
In Collaboration with: The Canadian Embassy in France
Collection and Storage of Plastics: YAM (Y’a QuelQu’un l’Aut’bord du Mur), SDC Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Used Ventilation Duct: Delsan Demolitions (ht: Natalie Voland)
Locations: Tomra Recycling, Sepaq (Oka), Ultradepot & Groupe Bellemare
Faucet Construction: Team Gaufab Inc
Gear Support: Sony, Broncolor
Project Managers: Geneviève Bélanger, Isabel Racine, Phil Boivin, Lisette Ladouceur
Rigging Team: Guillaume Briand, Guillaume Allaire-Forget, Roxane Beaulieu, Elizabeth Drouin
Videography: Danylo Bobyk, Tritam Chu Bedard, Lauren Guarneri
Graphic Design: Emma Segal
Digital Tech: Jessika Chiasson
Dance Team : Saxon Fraser (Choreographer), Marie-Reine Kabasha , Emmanuelle Martin, Danny de Matos, Fannie Côté, Brain Mendez, José Flores, Chad Concepcion, Ève Dupuis, Brooklyn Libao