Today I am sharing another must watch documentary. A documentary in the category ‘golden oldies’. But that sounds way too positive for the subject. I call it golden oldie because this documentary aligns with the first steps I took on this blog. I started out with reducing my waste. And that waste is what this documentary is about. Waste and pollution and the consequences of those things for the oceans. I’m talking about the documentary: A Plastic Ocean.
Reminder
When I say that a documentary is about waste, I reckon that you think this is going to an ugly documentary. Plastic pollution is ugly, terribly dirty. But sometimes you need to see the ugly things. As a reminder to keep your head in the game. To know what you’re doing it for. Fresh courage, to say ‘without a straw please’ for the thousandth time or to bring your own reusable produce bag to the store. I need that reminder sometimes. ‘Look Romee, this is what the situation is and what you’re fighting against’.
Beauty at the Same Time
Contradictory, the documentary starts beautifully. It shows the beauty of the oceans and all the living creatures inside of it. An amazing paradise, endlessly. But when that part is over the pollution is shown. It’s a big slap in the face. This is the thing we’re destroying. This is what we’re doing to the oceans.
What Goes around Comes Around
There are two subjects in the documentary that I really want to highlight today. The first thing is that we humans pollute the oceans and that we act like like it’s an endless landfill, but it’s not. What goed around comes around. The documentary explains that we’re harming ourselves too. The animals in the oceans suffer (because they eat plastic and die of starvation, which is enough reason to do better on itself), but we do too. If you eat fish or other seafood then you eat microplastics directly because the chemical substances in plastic which are eaten by fish find their way through the whole fish. I’d suggest you go vegan anyway, but if you aren’t yet please know that fishing nets are the biggest contributor to the plastic soup.
However, even if you are vegan the plastics find their way back to us. It’s found in beer, bread and even in human bodies. We’re polluting literally everything, even ourselves. The second thing that I wanted to highlight is that you see with your own eyes in the documentary how animals are affected. It can seem harmless, animals eating plastic. Don’t they poop it out? No. A piece of the documentary I will never forget is how they feed a bird water until it throws up. It throws up its entire stomach content and then you see how much plastic it contains. It’s insane and very intense.
Zero Waste Lifestyle
And so the reasons to thrive for a zero waste lifestyle and a circular economy pile up. Those two things are the ultimate solutions to this problem if you ask me. A vegan, circular economy where it’s easy to live a zero waste lifestyle. The solution part in the documentary I didn’t like so much. It discusses recycling. But recycling can never be the solution for plastics. Anyhow, A Plastic Ocean can be seen on Netflix. Have fun watching it!
Have you seen the documentary: A Plastic Ocean?
Yours sincerely,
Romee