Life in Plastic

from Multimedia Library Collection:
Environmental Film Profiles (videos)

Verhaag, Bertram. Life in Plastic. Munich: DENKmal-Film, 2008. DigitBeta, 45 min. https://youtu.be/nl6wQn2_dis.

Bertram Verhaag looks at the scale of many of the problems that plastic causes, but not without covering how these problems might be avoided. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge floating carpet of marine debris in the Pacific Ocean, consists mostly of small plastic particles. Substances used in plastics during the 1960s and 70s can now be found in polar bears and Beluga whales. In fact, most plastics persist in the environment for at least several hundreds of years. Plastics often contain substances that disrupt the way hormones, which are critical for organisms to grow and reproduce, function. In the face of which, Michael Braungart, best known for his work on a cradle-to-cradle approach to design, is on hand to explain how current recycling processes could be revolutionized. (Source: Adapted from DENKmal-Film)

© 2009 DENKmal-Film. Trailer used with permission.

About the Environmental Film Profiles collection

Further readings: 
  • Boetzkes, Amanda. “Plastic, Oil Culture, and the Ethics of Waste.” In “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Politics and Culture of Waste,” edited by Christof Mauch. Special issue, RCC Perspectives 1 (2016): 51–58.
  • Kaiser, Jocelyn. "The Dirt on Ocean Garbage Patches." Science 328, no. 5985 (2010): 1506.
  • Rajkumar, Ponnusamy. "A Study on the Plastic Waste and Environmental Degradation." ABC Journal of Advanced Research 4, no. 1 (2015): 9–15.