🤔What’s common between the Atacama desert, Space and Versova❓

Plus a bit of Cannes and a 100 word story

Jun 25, 2023

It's been a while, we hope ya’ll have been well. This week, we dive into something that’s been out of mind. With the rains finally here, some of this is going to become relevant too quickly.

1: SPACE

Imagine waking up in a fairy tale and seeing Dumbo the flying elephant in your bedroom. Inconvenient right? Okay, then imagine Dumbo on the streets. An obstruction for sure. So it’ll use its ears to fly itself (It's a wonder how a one-ton body can be lifted with big ears). It goes higher and higher and stops right outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Phew! Out of sight, out of mind. But then Dumbo starts multiplying and suddenly there are 9,000 of them orbiting the Earth. Still don't see them. Every now and then, the elephants shit but at the speed of a gunshot and ending up as an explosion.

The truth- the 9,000 elephants are actually the 9,000 metric tonnes of space debris that orbiting the earth right now. And the metaphorical shit is the debris colliding with other debris and falling on Earth.

Spacecraft reenters the Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: The Aerospace Corporation

In 2019, India foolishly shot down one of its low-orbiting satellites in a missile test to prove its space prowess. It created 400 pieces of orbital debris, that risked collision with the ISS.

Here’s why the ISS matters to us. As an example, the station crew at the ISS experimented with a system that is now used in air purifiers to eliminate the COVID virus.

And then, this is this year’s news on Indian satellite launches:

The World Economic Forum has released guidelines (not rules) where the most stringent guideline is asking governments to have capabilities to remove satellites from orbit within 5 years of the end of the mission. ISRO is now working on futuristic technologies such as self-eating rockets and vanishing satellites. Until the space superpowers come through on this, the next time we look up and see space junk exploding mid-air, we will wish upon it like a falling star.

As long as debris does not hit home…

2. ATACAMA DESERT

There is an end-of-season sale on one of my favourite fashion brands. The ads follow me everywhere. I decide to buy 4 items, no 5, because the more you buy, the bigger the discount. I am happy to have struck a deal. The brand is happy too, because the clothes are cheaply made of polyester, so their margins can be retained. The clothes got delivered to me, some 2 at a time and the rest, one at a time. I didn't feel too bad for the delivery person, because he would’ve come to the building to deliver someone else’s order anyway. I have neatly stacked the plastic bags, two for each piece of clothing. They are collected to give it to the garbage man separately. I tried on the clothes. Some fit perfectly, while some didn't. To avoid the carbon footprint, I tell myself that I can adjust the ill-fitting clothes, or wear them on occasions where perfection doesn't matter. Nevertheless, it's in a corner of the cupboard that I don't access frequently. A few months later, I finally find the occasion to wear the clothes. A couple of years later, thanks to the shoddy fabric material, the clothes are already starting to fray and look old. I decided to give these away. From there on, out of sight, is out of mind. Meanwhile, a lot more end-of-season sales have found me as a customer with the usual churn of ads → discounts → purchases → put away. I’m just a monkey in the fast fashion game.

And then a 2019 UN report, "Every second, an amount of textiles equivalent to a garbage truck is buried or burned."

And then, a LinkedIn post of a landfill of clothing waste in the Atacama Desert.

The clothes cannot biodegrade because they are synthetic. Here’s a video. So once a year, the landfill is burnt to the ground. The pollution doesn’t affect me. Atacama desert is in Chile. A little more research and recent satellite images show a clear landfill. It seems that It was cleaned in 2022. Or was it just burned to the ground? Anyway! Out of sight, out of mind!

3. Versova

On our recent vacation, we waddled on the beach and noticed something floating in the water. It was high tide and we were on alert to notice any fish lapping up against our bare feet, when we noticed, no not a jelly-fish, but a plastic theli-fish.

But this is nothing. In 1997 a boat racing guy was in a sailboat in the Pacific Ocean when he suddenly was surrounded by thrash all over. This was ocean debris made up of mostly plastics from the land. It is now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

It looks quite small on the map, but the patch is 1.6 million km2. For comparison, India is 3.28 km2. While it is the biggest, this patch isn't the only thrash vortex in the oceans, there are at least 4 more such vortexes.

But out of sight is out of mind, right?

A few hours after finding the plastic bag on the Thailand beach, flipping through the news, Shais found news about plastic debris washing up on Versova beach. This has now become an annual affair for Mumbai during high tide. That’s nature’s reverse uno card for out of sight is out of mind.

It has finally hit home though, hasn't it?

Further reading on this topic is at the end of the issue.

Cannes case studies for the year that have won and got our attention (at the time of writing this):

Gulp! 600 case studies were submitted this year and almost 50% had used AI, ChatGPT and machine learning.

Shais says: One common thread among these three campaigns, no matter how it was done, is using the past (a slight tangent to nostalgia)::Serena’s career path, Japan’s history and Clash of Clans faking it, all made us look back at something.

Which is your favourite Cannes 2023 winner (or shortlist)?

This week’s #100WordStory