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An Illustrated Guide to Edible Flora in the Neo-Plasticene: From Empirical Research to Sensory Speculation through Design
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This speculative design study uses AI-assisted narrative and visual generation to create an illustrated guide imagining how microplastic pollution might alter the morphology and sensory qualities of edible plants, proposing the concept of a "Neo-Plasticene" era to make the slow ecological effects of plastic contamination more perceptually tangible.
As micro plastics gradually infiltrate the physiological structures and sensory characteristics of edible plants, this study combines empirical research and speculative design to construct an illustrated guide of edible flora in the “New Plastic Age”, which we herein conceptualize as the Neo-Plasticene. Through AI-assisted narrative and visual generation, the guide simulates potential morphological and sensory mutations in plants subjected to pollution stress—articulating intermediary species positioned between nature and artificiality, defined by their latent transformation and persistent edibility. This project addresses the perceptual challenge of slow ecological mutation by proposing the guidebook as a design medium for future food narratives and environmental perception, offering an extensible model for speculative research in sensory design, pollution visualization, and ecological storytelling.
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Plastiglomerates, Microplastics, Nanoplastics
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This essay explores the cultural and ecological meaning of plastic pollution through art and speculative design, examining how plastics have become embedded in every environment including the human body. It argues that understanding plastic as part of a 'dark ecology' is essential for rethinking our relationship with synthetic materials.
Disnovation.org’s Futuristic Bestiary: Imagining a New Era of Bio- and Geodiversity
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This research analyzes an art book called "Bestiary of the Anthropocene" that imagines how pollution and human activity are creating strange new life forms, like animals filled with microplastics or radioactive mushrooms. The book presents these polluted creatures as a new type of biodiversity that might emerge as our planet becomes more contaminated. While this is an artistic project rather than scientific research, it highlights how real pollution—including microplastics that are already found in human blood and organs—could fundamentally change life on Earth.
Repackagaing Packaging: Using Plastic Waste as an Architectural Material to Rehabilitate Ecosystems
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This speculative design paper proposes using recovered plastic waste — including microplastics where feasible — as architectural building materials, exploring how creative reuse of ocean plastic could simultaneously address remediation needs and produce functional structures.
Micro and nanoplastics pollution: Sources, distribution, uptake in plants, toxicological effects, and innovative remediation strategies for environmental sustainability
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This review examines how microplastics and nanoplastics enter plants through roots, disrupt growth and photosynthesis, and cause oxidative stress that reduces crop yields. Because these plastic particles can move through plant tissues and into edible parts, they represent a potential pathway for microplastics to enter the human food supply.
Micro (nano) plastic pollution: The ecological influence on soil-plant system and human health.
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This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics affect soil health, plant growth, and food quality, finding that these particles accumulate in plant root systems and can reduce crop yields and alter nutritional content. Since contaminated soil and water are increasingly delivering microplastics to food crops, these findings are directly relevant to agricultural food safety.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.