The brief
Make plastic pollution impossible to ignore.
Create a PR moment that amplifies Liquid Death’s anti-plastic, pro-Earth stance in a way only Liquid Death could.
Liquid Death · PR / Activation
The Plastic Waste Cookbook
Seafood recipes for a future where the only thing left to catch is the plastic that killed the fish.
Concept campaign · Not commissioned, approved, produced, or run by Liquid Death
“When all the fish are gone, the only thing left to catch will be the plastic that killed them.”
So we made a seafood cookbook for that future.The Plastic Waste Cookbook
The cookbook
Bon appétit. We ruined the ocean.
A collection of seafood-inspired recipes built from the trash, chemicals, and synthetic waste replacing marine life.
Beautiful food. Horrific ingredients.
Three recipes from the end times
An upscale cookbook with nothing left to cook.
Each spread begins like a serious culinary page. Then the ingredients make the environmental horror impossible to miss.
Codless Salad
With fishnet lingerie dressing
Piped Up & Choked Out
Industrial runoff cuisine
Hung Out to Dye
A lagoon of despair
Launch phase · Partners in crime
Let chefs serve the nightmare first.
Popular chef creators tease a mysterious new “special recipe.” The audience thinks it is normal food content until the ingredients stop making sense.
01 · Normal chef introA beautiful dish begins.
02 · Recipe gets suspiciousThe ingredients feel… off.
03 · What are they making?Plastic. Pipes. Fish skeletons.
04 · RevealThe Plastic Waste Cookbook.Proposed creator activation · No participation implied
Phase two · Whale, I’ll be damned
Then let the internet lose its mind.
Liquid Death stays quiet long enough for confusion, outrage, jokes, stitches, duets, and reaction content to build around the mystery.
Before we explain the joke, let everyone argue about it.
Concept reactionWait. Is this an actual cookbook?
Concept stitchThere is absolutely no way they just put a pipe in that fish.
Concept commentI hate this. Where can I buy it?
Illustrative qualitative reactions only. No real engagement or participation is represented.
PR stunt · A Heated Reveal
Take the recipe somewhere people cannot look away.
The proposed finale places Liquid Death founder Mike Cessario into a Hell’s Kitchen-style televised cooking environment, where the assigned dish slowly becomes a Plastic Waste Cookbook recipe.
Take an environmental message people normally scroll past and force it into one of food culture’s loudest environments.
Proposed stunt concept only. No Hell’s Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay, Mike Cessario, or broadcaster participation is implied.
The book as PR object
The joke doesn’t end online.
A premium physical cookbook turns the idea into something journalists, chefs, creators, and celebrities could receive, photograph, and pass around.