Tonkel+Addicted+to+Plastic

1. Addicted to Plastic by Ian Connacher and released in 2008. 2. The central argument of this film is simple. We use plastics in almost everything today. Plastics are seen as a disposable material and it is polluting our waters, destroying our lands, and hurting entire ecosystems because of it’s physical properties. 3. There are sustainability problems from the production all the way to the disposal of plastics. The production is highly energy intensive; plastics are made from the byproducts of petroleum based fossil fuels and are hydrocarbons themselves. Next we have the issues that come with the continued used of these polymers in just about everything. People constantly are buying products that are plastics or products that are placed in plastics. We are almost always removing some type of plastic from our food, or drinking out of plastics or using plastic to clean ourselves. Afterwards all of it gets thrown out or “recycled.” Plastics are not biodegradable and last much longer than a human lifetime. Just to list a few of the issues they include the sustainability of our cultural views of reuse and recycling, the sustainability of how many of our business produce, package and sell their products, the sustainability of how we use energy to create plastics and the sustainability issues that come with our countries recycling systems. 4. I found the optimism of this film very compelling. The last section of the film was all about new ideas, discoveries and ways of action that will end up being the solutions to our disposable energy intensive lifestyles. One of the great inventions in my mind was the way Plantic in Germany was using bacteria to eat up old plastic waste and turn it into new bio-plastics that are biodegradable. There is no major energy input into the system, we don’t need to heat the plastic pellets to 1000 degrees and the final result is much healthier for our environment. Secondly I found the facts about how much developing countries recycle compared to the United States very compelling. Many Americans think we are the greatest at everything and yet we are losing this recycling battle to just about everyone, even with all our money and resources. 5. There was only really one part of the film that I found troubling. There was all the talk about biodegradable plastics that decompose into water and carbon dioxide, although this may be better than leaving un-decomposed chemicals and plastics in our environment the film never addresses the global warming problems with this. We are already having trouble controlling the amount of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere, if all the plastics we use start adding that amount, it will just cause more problems. I think the film could have done a better job addressing alternatives to plastics altogether. 6. After watching this film there are lots of things that I would like to find out more about our landfill system. If it’s true that nothing degrades in landfills because of the absence of oxygen and organisms, why do we continue to burry all our stuff? Obviously we don’t have room on our planet to continually fill up landfills that don’t break down our trash. I want to know what people are doing to fix this problem. Secondly, it would be cool to know more about what researchers are doing with micro-organisms to try and get around very high energy intensive processes. I can recall that a while back people were trying to find and implement the same process that spiders use to create their webs. Spider webs are the strongest polymer like material by density and even with the current way we make polymers we cannot replicate its strength density. 7. I think this film is great for average Americans as well as both larger corporations and small businesses. For the average person, I would hope this film shows them how terrible our demand for plastics are and keep them from purchasing so much plastic. There are lots of easy ways to avoid buying plastic. Some examples would be carrying a reusable water bottle or buying grocery goods based on the amount of waste material the food is packaged in. For businesses, this film is great for showing places for investment and improvement for operations. Following many of the examples set by the beer company that are both green and help save money on waste and electricity. 8. There were many points of intervention suggested by the film. Many were subtle hints and others were easily stated. Although I have touched on a few points of action above, overall the film suggests three things, investment in reusable plastics, biodegradable plastics, and the use of plastic waste as fuel. Also the film suggests the reduction in use of plastic from both the household and business. Lastly, it’s tough to say that picking up trash from the pacific garbage patch is helping because most likely the disposal of the plastic you pick out of the ocean will end up back in the water again. 9. The film did a great job at explaining lots of the information for people to easily understand, however I think that for it to really have great environmental educational value the director could have chose to address certain scientific evidence that explains things realistically, like how plastic pellets attract chemicals or how some of these new bio-plastics are developed. Continually throughout the film information was ignore or skipped over to keep the film appealing to a less scientific audience.