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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels

‘People laugh but think twice’: Belgian cartoonist takes on plastic pollution

The Boerke comic strip.
The Boerke comic strip. Photograph: © Nanuq for De Hofleveranciers.

Belgian cartoonist Pieter De Poortere was trying to do his bit for the environment: eating less meat and diligently sorting his rubbish – glass, paper, plastics. He realised it wasn’t enough. “I thought if we all sort out our trash, then everything will be recycled, everything will be OK, then we are doing great. But actually that is not true,” he said pointing to the problems of the global waste industry, where wealthy countries’ plastic may be dumped, or burned on open fires in poorer countries.

So he put his best-known character to work, as part of an international art project that launched in April, aiming to draw attention to the problem of plastic production.

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