Last evening the good folks over at OPIRG-Brock screened the film, Addicted to Plastic. First of all, let me just say that I love this idea of showing documentary films in this centrally-located downtown space. I hope this initiative grows and continues and I certainly plan to get out to as many of the films as my schedule will allow.

Ok, the film. Well, many of the scenes were eye-opening. I knew about the problem of plastic products and packaging ending up in the ocean and on beaches around the world, but the graphic images in this film really drove that point home. Piles and piles of bottles, bags and other “throw-away” items are killing animals and polluting the water, a pretty horrific legacy for products that are so ubiquitous that they barely get noticed in our day-to-day lives.

After reading books like Slow Death by Rubber Duck, I have made a deliberate and conscious effort to minimize the amount of plastic in my life. Glass jars and containers have replaced the plastic ones I used to use, my morning cuppa is brewed in a stainless steel kettle instead of a plastic one and I shun plastic grocery bags. Fair enough. But this exercise has also demonstrated to me just how difficult (impossible?) it is to go through the day without encountering plastics. Right now, as I sit in the kitchen, I am taking stock of all the plastic around me: the bird feeder on the porch, the bottle my cat’s medicine comes in, the bottle holding the dish soap, the packaging my tea comes in, the computer I am typing this blog entry on, the light switch, the handle on the fridge, the beaver balls made by my students that have inexplicably turned up on the kitchen table yet again (these things are everywhere, I tell you!). When I turn on my tap, does the water come to me through plastic-lined pipes? Probably. When I leave the house later I’ll get on a bus that is full of plastic parts and head to the grocery store where I’ll have to decide things like “should I buy the chickpeas in a can (lined with plastic) or the dried ones in the plastic bags?” It kind of makes my head spin.

There are people who have been blogging about their attempts to live plastic-free. This inspires me. There are shops that specialize in plastic-free alternatives. This is good news.

The film I saw last night spent quite a bit of time talking about bioplastics as an alternative. This worries me a little. On the surface, it does seem like a good idea. Plastics that are toxic-free and biodegradable seem like they would be a good solution, however, there are a whole host of other ethical and environmental questions that arise. For starters, are the crops that are used to sustain the bioplastic industry GMO crops? Is this the best use of farmland? Are these crops sprayed with pesticides? It seems to me that the bioplastic industry may be pointing the way forward in terms of some of the changes that need to be made, however, simply replacing one kind of plastic for another doesn’t really address the problem of over-consumption. How much of this stuff do we really need?