Drei Milliarden

Probably no other object is as symbolic of the global plastic crisis as the plastic bag: it is the epitome of our throwaway society, stands for global pollution, excessive waste and excessive consumption.

From 01.01.2022, it will be prohibited in Germany to put classic plastic bags on the market. However, particularly lightweight plastic carrier bags, so-called shirt bags, which consumers use primarily to transport fruit and vegetables sold by the piece or to transport food from fast-food restaurants, are exempt from the ban. In some cases, the use of the bags only outlasts the walk from the snack bar across the street to the next seating area, or they even end up unused on the asphalt and in green spaces. In Germany alone, about three billion of these bags are consumed each year.

Photographer and artistic activist Lars Klingenberg has been collecting fully functional shirt bags on the street since 2014. All the collected bags, by now tens of hundreds, lay on the street like garbage.

Sculptural, photographic images were created from these bags, which - combined with compact information about plastic and plastic waste - serve to educate and clarify the global plastic problem. The work "Drei Milliarden" plays with the visual codes and expectations of the social media platform Instagram and, with the help of "countless" iterations of the ready-mades, illustrates our mostly ill-considered, consumption-oriented ways of acting and the resulting long-term consequences for the environment.

(2019 - 2022)

"Drei Milliarden" on Instagram

300 bags in 300 days and quotes about plastic and plastic waste from 11 topics on Instagram between 28.10.2021 - 24.08.2022.

"Drei Milliarden" Quotation Archive

The quotes presented in „Drei Milliarden“ are part of a comprehensive Zitatensammlung (Collection of Quotes) that has been continuously created since 2014. Each of the eleven bag colours stands for a content category.

“Drei Milliarden“ Supporter Prints available here

To support pioneering, private initiatives that fight against global plastic pollution, four limited „Drei Milliarden“ typology prints are created for sale. 70% of the profits will be donated directly to the initiatives.