Two California artists turned around 5,000 pounds of discarded plastic into an 82-foot blue whale in 2018; after moving to New Mexico, the record-setting sculpture was named a Roadside America Sight o
Standing 82 feet long on the high‑desert grounds of Santa Fe Community College, Ethyl the Whale is a life‑size blue whale assembled from roughly 5,000 pounds of single‑use plastic. California artists Joel Dean Stockdill and Yustina Salnikova built the piece in 2018 to make visible the scale of ocean pollution, matching the exact dimensions of a mature blue whale.
The sculpture earned a Guinness World Record for the largest recycled‑plastic artwork. The creators harvested trash bags, milk jugs and other discarded containers, melted them into sturdy panels, and welded them together, turning what would be landfill waste into a striking public monument.
After its debut in the San Francisco Bay Area, the work was acquired by the arts collective Meow Wolf and donated to the college in 2019. Reassembled on campus, it now serves as an outdoor learning exhibit, inviting students and visitors to contemplate the long‑term impacts of single‑use packaging.
In 2026 the installation was highlighted as a Roadside America Sight of the Week, drawing travelers from across the country. Its bright blue hull against the arid desert landscape underscores a powerful paradox: a marine giant standing on land to remind us that plastic pollution knows no borders.