Environment: Twenty-First Century Waterfall

This computer animation by Doug James from Cornell was made to raise awareness about poor recycling rates of water bottles in the US.

From the estimated 30 billion plastic water bottles purchased in 2005, only about 12% got recycled. The remaining 25 billion bottles were either landfilled or littered.

The animation shows us how one second of these yearly amounts would look like by comparing the amount recycled bottles (about 100 bottles per second) to the non-recycled rate (about 845 bottles per second) as a “waterfall” of bottles falling to the ground.

Interesting visual and sound.

Click on the image below for the link (multimedia)

Hi-Res versions of the animation and more information on Doug James’ project page