The Message Behind These Beautiful Polluted Water Popsicles is Anything But a Treat (PHOTOS)

Three art students from Taiwan created over a hundred popsicles – ones no one would like to eat but everyone should certainly look at. Polluted Water Popsicles is a project meant to raise awareness about the problem of Pollution – one of the most critical environmental issues we are facing today. Among the many pieces created as part of the project, there are a few pastel and bright colors, typical of a popsicle, but most of these frozen “treats” are tinted shades of brown, yellow, and grey created from the dirty waters, tinged with heavy metals, and hued with gradients of discarded plastics – plus some arsenic, mercury, and lead (for taste!).

The Polluted Water Popsicles were created by three students of the National Taiwan University of Arts and photographed by one of the artists, Hung I-chen. 

Many of the popsicles contain such additional ingredients as plastic candy wrappers and broken pieces of discarded everyday objects.

The water for the popsicles was collected from Taiwan’s lakes and rivers. Afterward, it was first frozen, then preserved in polyester resin.

The students created a hundred popsicles – each a one-of-the-kind vivid example of how we are treating the world we live in, and that respecting the planet is something we still have to work on very seriously.

The popsicle art project has already gained much-deserved attention. This inventive and surprising form shares a message about pollution that reminds us all how human activity impacts the environment – and shows how crucial it is that we realize our role in cleaning up the messes we make.

While it may be just one form of Pollution, plastic is a huge issue we can tackle in our everyday lives. To learn more about how you can keep plastic our of your local waters, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign.