Bag It

Colorado's Jeb Berrier, whose looks and sense of humor recall the Three Stooges' Larry Fine crossed with Seinfeld's George Costanza, worries about the ubiquitous plastic shopping bags, bottles, and packaging that surrounds him. What is this stuff exactly? A petroleum product (hence, a wasteful, nonrenewable resource), plastic is—according to critics—both unsafe and nowhere near as recyclable as the American Chemistry Council, an industry lobbyist, likes to claim. Tons of it now eddies in several "gyres" (circular currents) in the ocean, where it poisons or kills fish, while those concerned with health argue that the leaching of toxins from plastic food containers can damage human physiology. Despite Berrier's Morgan Spurlock/Michael Moore clowning, filmmaker Suzan Beraza's Bag It is still quite a disturbing documentary—a small whale suffocating on ingested plastic makes a particularly lucid case against this eco-scourge substance. Along the way, the film works in the birth of Berrier's first child as an environmental bellwether and interviews several name-brand activists, including actor Peter Coyote, author Annie Leonard, and oceanographer Sylvia Earle. Commendably, this Docurama release comes in an innovative Dutch-made DVD case formed out of paper pulp. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (C. Cassady)