Before plastics and synthetic polymers, rubbish could be re- absorbed naturally into the ground. It seems to me that our society is the first to know that more of its’ rubbish will continue to exist in a stable state, after its manufacturers and users have long gone. How much ‘plastic’ there is, what a diversity of form and how much time and effort goes into getting it to our doors! In the plaster city of ‘Ghost’, the plastic outer casings may not be present, but we have a vague recognition of the pre-existing forms, shapes and colours. Even without the packaging, informing us of the properties and powers of the contents, we are attuned to extraordinary variety of marketed shapes that we ‘never knew we needed’.

On realising that the ‘city’ was made up of casts of rubbish, someone said, “That looks just like the playground near our house!”

With a will, much of the packaging we use could be recycled, but in the meantime we risk being consumed by our own compulsive acquisitveness. In the shops and supermarkets it seems like there’s an endless supply of this sort of stuff, there’s even a museum dedicated to packaging. Many of the products and packages of the past were converted into other things. In times of crisis they became planes and bombs and were consumed in war: do plastic ploughshares work or are we just fighting with plastic swords?

Photographer : Susannah Oliver © 2003