A Plastic Ocean
“A Plastic Ocean” — Taiwanese Film Premiere
Winds & Waves / May 2017
In an unprecedented collaboration, One Brown Planet has brought together major government, international and local NGO’s to bring to the people of Taiwan the Chinese premiere of the film “A Plastic Ocean”. This Australian documentary investigates the current state of our oceans, and the newest science concerning the magnitude of the problems that we are facing with ocean plastic pollution.
Globally we produce 300 million tons of plastic every year and an estimated 5 trillion plastic bags. But 80% of all this plastic ends up as landfill or as plastic pollution in the oceans. The equivalent of dumping 1 garbage truck full of plastic in the ocean, every minute!
The aim of this project is two-fold;
- By hosting this Nation-wide series of FREE screenings of the documentary “A Plastic Ocean”, we hope to raise awareness of the global problem of plastic pollution.
Beginning with the “Premiere” in Taipei on the 27th May, the screenings will continue across most of Taiwan, including Keelong, Tainan, Taichung, Hualien and Taipei again.
2. A “Call to Action”. There will be a series of nationwide beach cleaning events to be held across Taiwan. This is an opportunity to get involved and make a positive effort to reduce plastic pollution in Taiwan
Full details of both events can be found at www.onebrownplanet.com
Full details of the documentary can be found at www.plasticoceans.org/film
It is through projects such as raising awareness through creating the world’s largest crochet turtle made from waste plastic, educational workshops, online educational tools, beach cleaning and blogging, that One Brown Planet has been successful in furthering their agenda to increase the sustainability of our actions as the human species.
Solving the environmental problems we face today should actually be quite easy, in theory. In practice it is not so straight forwards.
After all, an awareness of an issue combined with compassion and armed with practical solutions, is all that is required, right? But almost all of our environmental issues today, especially plastic pollution, already have practical solutions. So what is the problem?
The problem is a lack of awareness. Without awareness, how can we create the compassion that drives us to implement the solutions?
So how do you raise awareness of the problem of plastic pollution? For example, did you know that almost all seabirds now eat plastic regularly, killing up to 1 million of them, every-year? But we need to be careful that we match these issues to a practical solution. If we don’t, all we do is increase despair or worse, apathy. So, how about refusing plastic straws (We waste 2 billion every day!) with your next drink? Or what about using a reusable cup instead of a disposable one (1.4 billion coffee cups wasted every day). Simple changes like these make incredible differences when we do it together.
Perhaps the best thing you can do right now (and the easiest), is simply to spread the word about this problem we have with plastic pollution. Pretty soon we will all be aware of this global disaster unfolding before our eyes and then we will all be able to help, before it is too late.
So, this is my challenge and it is a challenge I accept and I hope you do too.
by Mark Blackburn
One Brown Planet
