Thomas – 4/7/09 – Plastic Movie
On tuesday, April 7 I went to see a movie on plastic with my mother and friend Kameron at the Lincoln center Walter Reade theater uptown. The movie was called Addicted to Plastic! The Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle and it was directed by Ian Connacher. So, here’s how the evening went. My mom, Kameron, and I arrived at the theater at 6:45 pm. We walked over to the Think Outside the Bottle organization’s stand and talked to their regional organizer, John Stewart. They were campaigning using tap water instead of bottled, like what we’ve been doing. However, they have gotten even farther. They have been trying to go against Nestle, the biggest bottled water company in the world, and through their campaign they have been protesting, giving out flyers, and having trials. They even took our picture holding up a sign saying something along the lines of “no more nestle!” It was already very interesting. Close to 7:00, we poured ourselves a cup of water and walked into the screening room. The show then started with the organizer of the event introducing herself and the theater. She even mentioned how they had screened FLOW there the year before. Then, she brought up Ian Connacher, the director, and he introduced his film and the small episode of Eco Trip: Water Bottle that would be screened before his movie. So, Eco Trip started and was actually a very interesting 40 minute episode. The host of it, David de Rothschild, explained how bottles were used in our daily lives and then went on to visit factories were bottles are made, factories where they used recycled bottles to create matter used for many other things, and talked to experts on the subject. It was a very interesting episode of a very good show called Eco Trip, which focuses on many different and interesting topics and is on the sundance channel every week. So, then Addicted to Plastic started. The movie started out showing the cause of water bottles and what happens to them; where they end up and why. Ian Connacher had gone to the part of the pacific ocean where all garbage meets and most of that garbage is made up of plastic bottles. Then, Connacher led to how all of that happened and how bottles are made, how all plastic is made. He talked about the history of plastic and where it has led to. It was devastating how bad things were because of plastic. However, the movie then showed all these different companies, organizations, stores, and groups that used the recycled plastic for many other things. Some of these things were matter, soil, art, clothing, accessories, bags, etc. It was amazing. All of the possibilities. All of these places tried hard to help this problem. They reused everything. I found this movie absolutely amazing. Ian Connacher focused on everything possible. How it happened, what it did, and how we can solve the problem. It really got the message across. After the movie was over, three panelists got up on the stage to answer various questions. The three panelists were Ian Connacher, John Stewart, and senior scientist/Natural Resources Defense Coucil member, Allen Hershkowitz, Ph.D. They all contributed to each question thoughtfully and I found it very good that they did, because there were a few things I hadn’t understood at first. So, all in all, the night was great. The show and movie combo was great and the panelists tied it all up well.