Photographer Bryan Anselm has spent months documenting how plastic waste dominates New York City's streets, workplaces and public spaces, alongside the individuals and groups working to curb it. The project highlights how plastic packaging, once a niche material, has become an inescapable feature of everyday urban life, with lightweight wrappers, bags and bottles spilling from bins and collecting in gutters across the city. It underscores growing concern about the environmental and health toll of plastic production, which continues to expand rapidly worldwide.

Global plastic production rose from just 2m metric tons in 1950 to 450m metric tons by 2019, with less than a tenth of it recycled worldwide, and only about 5% of US household plastic waste recycled. The average American generated 218lb of plastic waste in 2018, up 263% from 60lb in 1980, driven largely by cheap natural gas from the US fracking boom, which made plastic manufacturing highly profitable for the fossil fuel industry. In New York, plastic makes up about 15% of municipal solid waste, with street fairs, beach visits and packaged food and drink contributing heavily to the problem, according to Judith Enck of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics.