Content area
Full Text
Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Documentary, 57 minutes, dvd, color, 2013. Written and directed by Angela Sun; distributed by Bullfrog Films. Available through Bullfrog Films at http://bullfrogfilms.com/ catalog/plpaso.html. us$333.00.
Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has garnered numerous awards and attention from around the globe. With a message that stirs people to want to reverse course, Angela Sun's documentary is an exposé that left this viewer deeply moved by the enormity of the environmental catastrophe in progress as well as by the proximity of the problem to easily overlooked dimensions of our daily lives. The film was particularly meaningful for me after having witnessed firsthand the challenges of trash disposal and environmental degradation on Atafu Atoll in Tokelau, and it will resonate with numerous discussions of contemporary issues in the Pacific.
Sun describes the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (gpgp ) in the North Pacific as an immense floating mass of toxic debris about the size of Texas. In the film, she makes her way to remote Midway Atoll, just south of the North Pacific gyre where the gpgp is located, to see firsthand what she considers "ground zero," an island with minimal human development and an enormous albatross breeding ground awash in plastic debris.
According to the filmmaker, plastic debris collects in this fashion because a combination of gyres (large systems of rotating ocean currents) serve as catchment basins, and debris that would otherwise circulate randomly concentrates within certain zones. At the same time, low-lying islets and high islands alike act as "combs" and catch the plastic waste as it swirls by, concentrating the pollutants and toxins with potentially horrific short- and long-term consequences for nonhuman (and possibly human) ecologies. The gyres that participate in the ocean's plastic sickness can be seen as a metaphor for Sun's documentary storytelling. She too has several topical gyres of information that swirl about throughout the film and ultimately coalesce into a compelling picture of environmental dysfunction.
Gyre 1: plastic...