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If you passed London’s Old Street in the summer of 2018, you will have seen a usually bare piece of land near the roundabout adorned with a giant sculpture of a wave, constructed entirely out of plastic waste The installation was composed of familiar detritus: empty milk containers, grocery bags and outdoor furniture But unlike those plastics floating in the world’s oceans or entering household recycling bins every day, the bags and bottles that made up the plastic wave had been carefully selected and assembled to replicate the shape and hues of an oceanic phenomenon The Wave of Waste was the work of the beer company Corona Surrounding the sculpture were three large billboards One depicted a surfer; the others advertised the Mexican beer brand and their commitment to keeping the picturesque beaches frequented by their ideal consumers free from plastic On closer inspection, the surfer was revealed to be the Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, a plastic wave looming over him    The actor, formerly of Home and Away fame and now best known for his role in Marvel’s Avengers franchise, is one of six ambassadors for Corona’s partnership with the environmental non-profit Parley for the Oceans In promotional photographs and videos, celebrities appear alongside local volunteers, picking up plastic waste from one of the 100 island beaches selected as the symbolic examples of Parley and Corona’s environmentalist efforts The installation at Old Street roundabout was itself constructed out of waste collected from a beach in Sussex; Londoners also had the option to participate in the broader Parley strategy by dropping off their own plastic waste, in order to become part of the sculpture In Parley’s vision, everyone has a small yet important part to play in the fight against plastics pollution Movie stars, commuters and island residents become equal participants in a quest to rebuild untouched natural idylls around the world, as though the act of picking up a single plastic bag can reverse decades of wilful destruction    Narratives like these, which tell stories of individual action, shared responsibility and small-scale intervention, permeate contemporary environmentalist practice From reusable coffee