Salome Jashi

Georgia

Salome Jashi

director, producer, editor

Plastic

An average Georgian citizen consumes minimum 5 plastic bags a day as part of their shopping habit. In the adult population of 3 million this means consumption of minimum 15 million pieces of plastic bag in a single day. This means that if stretched horizontally it creates three layers of polyester covering the whole territory of Georgia in just one month.
This is a story of production, consumption and waste of polyethylene on the example of one particular country of Georgia. Polyethylene is one of the biggest and most profitable businesses in the country. Tons of polyethylene are imported from neighboring country and disseminated through the large central plastic market situated on the borderline. This market is the project’s starting point – the location saturated with density of colours, textures, smells, creaks overlaying shouts of sellers and bargains of buyers. The project is a journey of plastic bags that travel to shops, households, then to waste dumps, fields and streets ending up as decorations of bushes, trees and electric cables.
If you go to one of the two hypermarket chains in Georgia and you want to buy a single lemon you are forced to put it in a sealed plastic bag. Otherwise it cannot be weighed and bought. Even if it is a small shop in the corner of your street, a salesperson puts almost each single purchased item in a plastic bag. This common practice is never questioned neither by consumers and suppliers nor by the government.
"Plastic" is a transmedia project using various platforms in a linear and nonlinear way to observe and analyze the social behavior of plastic consumption and encourage recycling and use of alternative material.
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