Beijing Bottles

Single-use bottles and bottle caps are among the most common things we find on Kehoe Beach. They come from our neighborhoods and from thousands of miles across the sea. Ocean currents are the great conveyors bringing us debris from all around the Pacific Rim. We find telltale product labels from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan, Korea, India, even Russia and our bottles from the San Francisco Bay end up on distant shores.

In one day we found 27 drink bottles from Asia including one from the 2008 Beijing Olympics that took a four year trans-Pacific journey, arriving on Kehoe Beach in 2012 just in time for the London Olympics. The surface of the bottle is embossed with summer sports: swimming, archery. 

Water bottles are one of the most prevalent and most damaging plastics in the environment—and so easily replaced by adopting new habits. Carry a reusable bottle; tap water is more rigorously monitored than bottled water.

We propose a new addition to the 2016 Olympic medal events — the plastic water bottle transport. How many days will it take a bottle to float from Rio to Kehoe?

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Umbrella Handles

 

French parapluie, against the rain.

Latin, parasol, against the sun.

The oldest written reference to a collapsible umbrella dates to Ancient China and the year 21 AD, but pictorial records go all the way back to 18th entry BC Egypt. The expense of manufacture dictated that their use was reserved for the noble classes. Umbrellas once only for the very rich are now found at the local Walgreens for $2.00, lasting just about two dollars worth. You can still find a fancy designer umbrella signifying status, and if status holds significance for you, you can buy a Burberry plaid design for $350 or a Louis Vuitton vintage model for $1200. Today the cheapness of umbrellas accounts for us finding so many handles. On any blustery rainy day the streets of every city are littered with the skeletonized corpses of blown out umbrellas all on their way to the beach.

    Finding Meaning in the Mess    Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology, Berkeley, CA 

TURTLE WAX

Over the years we've found quite a few of these caps from Turtle Wax automotive wax/polish. In 1941, Ben Hirsch, the founder, traveled around Chicago to sell his product first called Plastone. He would station himself in a parking lot, polish one fender of a car and wait for the owner's return. Then Ben would sell them a bottle to finish the job. While in Turtle Creek, Wisconsin he was struck with the idea of "The Hard Shell Finish." The name of the town along with the by-line clicked. Turtle Wax is now the largest automotive appearance product company in the world.  The top hat on the logo came from Hirsch's hobby as an amateur magician. 

"Turtle Wax gives a magic shine."