The alarming reason Antarctica’s new flag is covered in tiny, colorful

You could consider Antarctica as a sheet of fresh ice lined in pristine snow, largely untouched by people. That’s how its flag—designed by vexillologist Graham Bartram for an atlas within the early ’90s—depicts the continent: an unblemished white map of Antarctica in opposition to a light-weight blue background.

However in actuality, inside Antarctica’s snow are tiny particles of plastic—an indication that the scourge of plastic air pollution has reached one of the vital distant areas of the world. Now Bartram has a new design for Antarctica’s flag, as a part of a name to motion to demand a World Plastics Treaty that may curb plastic consumption. Within the redesign, Antarctica is now not a pristine white. As a substitute, its define is crammed with tiny colourful dots representing the microplastics which have polluted the world.

The redesigned flag is a part of a marketing campaign by Agenda Antarctica, a nongovernmental group engaged on environmental preservation for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

“Antarctica stands as our final bastion of pristine wilderness, but it grapples with the pervasive subject of plastic air pollution,” a website for the campaign reads. “Microplastics have infiltrated the snow, fish, birds, and seawater on this untouched area.”

Agenda Antarctica goals to get signatures on a petition demanding a strong Global Plastics Treaty, one which limits virgin plastic manufacturing, invests in recycling infrastructure, reduces single-use packaging, and mandates a minimal quantity of recycled content material in new merchandise. By way of the United Nations, 175 nations have agreed to develop such a treaty and are at present negotiating its parameters; negotiations are anticipated to final by means of 2024.

The flag is vital to getting this message throughout. “Flags are a particular form of image,” Bartram says. On the finish of the day you’ll be able to say, effectively, they’re only a piece of material, however they’ll embody a whole nation in what they symbolize.”

As a result of Antarctica has no governing physique, it doesn’t have an official flag; Bartram created his design for a digital atlas program printed by Digital Arts. Afterword, his design gained recognition—it’s used, for instance, for the flag of Antarctica emoji. The prospect to reconfigure his unique design for this marketing campaign additionally offered a possibility to merge his passions for learning and designing flags (he’s the chief vexillologist on the U.Ok.’s Flag Institute) alongside together with his look after ecology (he’s a fellow of the Zoological Society of London and has donated to its conservation work).

The flag’s design is predicated on actual analysis. Specialists with New Zealand’s College of Canterbury detailed the primary proof of microplastics in recent Antarctic snow in a 2022 study. Analyzing freshly fallen snow on Antarctica’s Ross Island, they discovered a mean of 29 microplastic particles per liter of melted snow—a better quantity than what had been discovered within the water within the surrounding Ross Sea and in Antarctic sea ice from earlier research. These tiny plastic items, smaller than a grain of rice, had been largely PET, a kind of plastic utilized in drink bottles, meals packaging, and clothes. They may have traveled hundreds of miles within the air or come from people in analysis bases on the continent.

However regardless of this far attain, microplastics could be a troublesome subject to know. They’re tiny, generally invisible to the bare eye. An image zoomed in on microplastics must be so shut that it could possibly fail to indicate the context, just like the area the place these microplastics had been discovered.

“The flag is a a lot less complicated and extra trustworthy method of depicting the issue, since you’re not attempting to idiot anyone that that is what Antarctica truly appears to be like like,” Bertram says. “You’re simply highlighting the significance of a as soon as white image turning into corrupted by all these coloured plastics.”

Bertram hopes the design sparks dialog, and finally motion, round our plastic air pollution drawback. “Perhaps we are able to get a groundswell of individuals to say no, we have to do one thing about this,” he says.

That’s Agenda Antarctica’s hope too. “Plastic air pollution has one and just one origin: our consumption practices,” the marketing campaign’s website reads. “The answer? Change our way of life. We’re all chargeable for defending our one and solely planet for us and the longer term generations. Antarctica’s pristineness and distinctive ecosystem counts on you.”