The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean discovered between 1984 and 1988.

A study this year, based on what researchers called a mega-expedition to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2015 – suggests there is about 16 times more waste than previously thought floating there. The mass of waste spans 617,763 square miles(1.6 million square km), about three times the size of France.

Something has to be done.

Philippine creative agency, Dentsu Jayme Syfu, put the problem of dumping rubbish in the middle of a Philippine beach.

In just five days, Dentsu Jayme Syfu and a team of local artists created the sculpture of a blue whale stretching 73 feet long.

Starting with a bamboo structure, the group worked to exploit the aesthetic qualities of the plastics they salvaged to make the installation look as realistic as possible, including using plastic bags to simulate the slimy texture of a whale’s decomposing body.

The strikingly unusual awareness campaign for Greenpeace Philippines was an installation – a dead whale made of plastic – placed on a beach in Naic in Cavite in Manila Bay in The Philippines. Manila Bay is considered to be one the most polluted bodies of water in the country.

From a distance, the 26.3 x 3.3 metre whale looked like any of the other 30 whales that had died on beaches in the past year.

But this whale was made entirely of plastic waste. The agency had used local artists to craft every detail, including texture, in just five days. The whale appeared to be bleeding, and spewing out of its mouth were the choking remains of plastic containers, garbage bags and bottles.

All of the whale’s colours were achieved with rubbish. Blue sacks; black, grey, and white garbage bags; red net onion sacks for the “bleeding” sections; twisted white sacks for the underbelly; PET bottles were for the baleen teeth;  black, white and red strings and straw for the skin.

Dead Whale (the Refuse Plastic campaign) has won Best of Show, Green Award, and Platinum Award APAC at the 2018 AME Awards. At the 2018 Cannes Advertising Awards it picked up silver and gold in the art installation category. It won the most awards at Spikes Festival Awards 2017- a Gold Spike in Media, in Outdoor, Silver in PR, Bronze in Design, and Bronze in Direct – and made Dentsu Jayme Syfu Country Agency of the Year. It also won awards at Ad Summit’s Kidlat Awards and Adfest 2018 and is shortlisted for the APAC Effie Awards.