One Man’s Ocean Pollution Is Another’s Sculptures

Artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi and the Washed Ashore movement create environmental awareness out of ocean debris and litter in the form of sculptures.

by McKenzie Graham

rainbow parrot fish sculptures A vacation on the beach is an iconic American getaway. Visions of cottages, crumbling sand castles, zinc-smeared noses and pristine beaches are embedded in our collective nostalgia. The problem with that picture is the pristine beaches: They’re starting to vanish. Pollution washed up from Earth’s oceans litters many of the coastlines some environmental groups are trying desperately to preserve. Artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi and the organization Washed Ashore are using another tactic: Create beauty from refuse. They’ve been wildly successful, cleaning some 300-plus miles of beaches, processing 38,000 pounds of marine debris and creating more than 60 sculptures in the 6 years since the organization was created. Pozzi says, “Until we run out of plastic on the beach, we will keep doing our work.”