plastics

The first episode of the Crosscurrents podcast series focuses on the impact of oil on 20th-century plastic production, geopolitical conflict, and culture.

A woman and her family live next to a recycling plant in China, in mountains of plastic waste from Asia, Europe, and the U.S.This documentary reveals the lives of those on the fringes of global capitalist realities, a far cry from the communist dream.

Finn Arne Jørgensen examines the development of the Scandinavian beverage container deposit-refund system, which has the highest return rates in the world, from 1970 to the present day. He reveals the challenges faced when the system was exported internationally and explores the critical role of technological infrastructures and consumer convenience in modern recycling.

In this commentary, Stefan Helmreich considers how Hokusai’s famous woodblock print, The Great Wave, has recently been leveraged into commentaries upon the Anthropocene, and how the image has been adapted to speak to the contemporary human-generated global oceanic crisis.

This film follows an 84-year old woman’s campaign to ban the sale of bottled water in the small American town of Concord, Massachusetts.

This film follows a filmmaker as he and his family attempt to live for a year without using oil products.

This film follows a team travelling to Alaska to examine how much of our garbage has ended up in the region’s gyre—a rotating ocean current.

A couple competes to live with zero waste for a whole year, with comedic results.