Addicted to Plastic

Another evening, another great movie. Two nights ago I was flipping through channels and saw that the movie Addicted to Plastic was airing on the Sundance Channel so hubby and I sat down to watch it together. We both loved it.

It is basically a documentary style film that exposes how the average American is "addicted" to plastic. It also spans 12 countries and 5 continents to find out where plastic comes from, what is made with it, where it goes after its useful life, why it may be poisoning us and our oceans, and what we can do about it. I have to give BullFrog Films big props because it was a VERY interesting film.

Everyone should watch this film to get an idea of how much plastic is in our oceans… it was mind boggling. There were so many scenes that made me so angry about how people are trashing something so beautiful and let me tell you.. this movie might make you reconsider ever eating fish again.

My husband loved the industrial aspects of the show and the innovations in plant based plastics and ways to upcycle plastics. I liked how he got see other people (besides me) talk about the toxic effects of plastic and the leaching of chemicals. It was nice that they specifically mentioned two of the ones I am always telling him about… BPA and Phthalates. There was a really annoying scientist on there talking about how the risks were so tiny that people are blowing things about of proportion and I started arguing with the TV screen, which my husband thought was hilarious of course.

At one point in the movie the narrator wakes up on the floor with only a sheet for a bed, he gets up and walks through an empty house and brushes his teeth with baking soda and a stick. It was quite funny and meant to demonstrate that getting rid of our favorite products is not a good option but I actually liked the house with next to nothing in it… I kept thinking how lovely and easy it would be to maintain. I would want a bed though, LOL.

It was a great movie and impressed upon me even more that we need to do more to reduce the plastic in our life. It also motivated me to buy some of the aluminum garbage grabbers and pair them with resusable bags so that we can collect garbage whenever we visit our local waterways, lakes, rivers, and creeks. If everyone had some clean up gear when they went out for a day at the lake we could do a lot to clean things up. My kids will think it is great fun to spend a portion of the day looking for garbage… heck they already walk around picking up garbage in the gutters of our neighborhood streets. Its hard to tell how much garbage we generate when we have everyone else's garbage in there too!

When you have the time check out Addicted to Plastic. It is airing again on March 7 on Sundance. Hubby has already set it to record because he wants to watch again.