Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Filmmaker Angela Sun brings a sunny disposition and buoyant personality to the horrible business of investigating the massive amount of plastic that is dumped into the Pacific Ocean every year. The “Great Pacific garbage patch” of the film's title is actually an underwater burial ground for plastic debris from the U.S. and Asia, which is caught in swirling currents that drive the trash down, killing marine life in various ways. Sun flies out to the Midway Atoll, a hard-to-access bird haven where tons of plastic washes up onshore, and examines several coral reefs that are being decimated by enormous, nylon nets. Viewers see Sun collecting plastic from the waters where she travels and watch as she infiltrates plastics industry conferences only to be booted out and threatened. But Sun's Michael Moore-like tactics seem well-suited to the subject of a dangerous, yet all-pervasive product that is in every aspect of our lives—including the seafood we consume. While this documentary refers to the North Pacific patch, a second patch has been discovered in the South Pacific that may be more than two times the size of California. An alarming environmental activism film, this is recommended. [Note: this is also available with public performance rights for $350 from Bullfrog Films, www.bullfrogfilms.com.] Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)