Plastic Sushi? Order Up!

The advertisement made by Surfrider Foundation brings attention to the large amounts of plastic that end up in the ocean. It sheds light on the idea that plastic ends up in the ocean with other organisms, making their environment uninhabitable. It also alludes to the idea that the ocean is one of our sources of food, the trash that accumulates, which is eaten by fish and other organisms, could easily end up in our food. This advertisement makes the foundation’s message clear: we should be more aware of the amount of trash that ends up in the ocean not only because it can harm marine life but it can also harm us.

By creating this message, the foundation is appealing to us through fear and guilt. By including the phrase “What Goes In The Ocean Goes In You”, the foundation is pushing for the audience to think twice about leaving plastic or any type of trash near the ocean where organisms could easily mistake it for food. Not only is it disheartening to think about organisms eating plastic, but the idea of potentially consuming plastic or any trash yourself is frightening and simply disgusting. They also manage to make this real-life problem more relatable as the organisms in the ocean would not be the only ones consuming landfill.

This add uses the concept of next-step reality because it depicts what a sushi roll and essentially our food would look like if we do not take action now. Sushi is comprised of rice, nori, which are the sheets of seaweed that the sushi is rolled in, and is typically eaten with chopsticks. In the advertisement, the foundation includes an image of sushi with a twist. The sushi does include rice but the nori has been replaced with plastic bags. Inside of the sushi, the rice is included but it also wraps more plastic where other ingredients would usually be. The advertisement also includes wooden chopsticks which is what you usually use to eat sushi.

This is an example of next-step reality because the advertisement has sushi rolls that resemble actual sushi but have characteristics that make it unappealing to consume. The whole advertisement appeals to our disgust if we were ever to eat the sushi made out of landfill and trash. This is clever for their intended call to action which is to stop throwing plastic near the ocean and to find other environmental-friendly ways to get rid of it.  

The plastic in the sushi and the chopsticks add reality to the intended message of the advertisement. Plastic bags are very real and used today and sushi is a very popular meal consumed by many and by combining these two, the ad shows a very daunting, but near future. Although plastic sushi would never be sold, this ad raises the issue that we could easily come across a lot of plastic debris in our seafood. If the amount of plastic keeps rising, the possibility of consuming plastic debris becomes a more plausible act.

Research done by Algalita shows that plastic ingestion by animals is a very real problem. They explain that an average of 35% of the fish they studied had ingested plastic. They also state that there are long-term effects such as absorption of plastic contaminants due to plastic-consumption in fish which could be seen throughout the whole population. This research shows that organisms are absorbing plastic debris and this debris could make its way back to our meals. This data supports the need for this clever advertisement.

Overall, the rise in plastic and landfill making its way to our ocean is alarming. The ad uses next-step reality to show that our food can easily have high amounts of plastic debris if we do not do anything about the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean. Our food won’t be necessarily made out of plastic like the plastic sushi but it is portrayed as the next-step in our reality. The ad conveys the message in a convincing manner with the large text stating that the trash could end in us and portraying what our food could soon look like.