- Posts tagged plastic bags
- Explore plastic bags on posterous
Plastic Planet: The Curse of the Carrier Bag, 2006
In 2006 I made a no-budget short film about plastic bags. Put it on Myspace and then suddenly the whole world was contacting me wanting to use it in anti-plastic bag campaigns. At least 40 campaigns from Canada to India to Australia showed it to public gatherings to raise awareness. I think people latched onto plastic bags as a ubiquitous symbol of all that is wrong with our unsustainable way of living these days. Anyway, The Cooperative group in the UK showed it internally, Liverpool projected it in their town square on an open film day, it won a Green TV competition at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival and Discovery Channel asked to put it on their interactive website to show what's happening at grass roots level, I think as part of their buying the TreeHugger site.
I hope to embed the film here but it doesn't work at the moment.
Interviewees in the film are :
Satish Kumaar, ex-Jain monk and environmentalist, started Resurgence,
Mukti Mitchell, eco-designer,
Jonathan Porritt, Sustainable Development Commission
Diana Verde-Nieto from Clownfish, and ethical PR company,
Jessica Symons, social entrepreneur
the lovely Jeffrey Davies running a plastic bag factory in London (Polybags), telling us why biodegradable bags aren't the answer
a waste-worker in Brighton,
Irish minister talking about the banning of plastic bags there
My favourite bit is the fact that I found a song with the most perfect chorus, and got permission to use it: Simon Denyer's Plastic Bag song. A little bit too catchy...and I like the 50's archive material with its enthusiasm about plastic.
Anthony Alexander edited with a great deal of talent and commitment, and I got Rosanna Jon to draw these cartoons for me with her animation expertise, using photos I had taken of plastic bags arranged with blue tac on my wall in certain positions. They appear at the end of the film depicting the nicknames which people have given the plastic bags you see strewn all over the place : Landfill snowbirds, witches' knickers, urban tumbleweed, Tundra ghosts, and one to do with kites which I've now forgotten... 2 of the cartoons below.
Also, some of the horrid photos that didn't make it into the film. (All copyright permissions cleared in 2006) Every time you throw away a plastic bag into the bin going to Landfill, conjure these images to mind.
>





