Between 1950 and 2017 humans created an estimated 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic. About 7 billion tonnes of that is estimated* to exist as waste on the surface of the earth – that is equivalent to the combined weight of 70,000 fully loaded United States Navy aircraft carriers, or seven times the weight of Mount Everest.
A group of local volunteers want you and local decision-makers to know more about the how and why this imminent and growing threat to all life on earth.
They are organising a free community screening in Brixton of a new Netflix documentary Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy and plan to have an informed Q&A session afterwards about the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty and plastic pollution more generally.
The event is from 6 to 10pm on Tuesday 26 November upstairs at Market House on Coldharbour Lane.
The screening is non-profit and funded entirely by volunteers who feel the event offers a unique opportunity to engage and inform our community.
Plastic is everywhere, yet it mostly goes unnoticed.
But if you have ever bought plastic-wrapped fruit or veg, written with a Biro or marker, drunk take-away coffee, eaten a packet of crisps, bar of chocolate, or chewed gum, you may have contributed to the problem.
Are you wearing polyester or nylon as you read this? Are you wearing shoes? ask the organisers.
Plastic waste has accumulated over many decades and now poses a real crisis for the whole of humanity. We face a toxic buildup of microplastics and chemicals that are impossible to separate from the plastics they are used with.
“It poisons our land. It chokes our oceans. Its chemicals cause cancer. We are like addicts – we can’t stop,” they say.
“We know about all the harms. But the industry is set to triple in size by 2060, hand in hand with the fossil fuel giants.
“The global plastics treaty is a single chance to create global regulation of plastics production. It’s the only solution.”
Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy – director Nic Stacey – turns the camera on the corporate negligence and greed-driven marketing of major brands.
In a powerful and uncomfortable hour and a half, viewers hear from whistleblowers and insiders, scientists and activists, in a documentary that forces them to face the monster that plastic has become. Finally, it asks “what next?”
Event organisers plan to invite local MPs and councillors, grassroots campaign groups, NGO representatives and local people to engage in this necessary and timely conversation.
*source: International Knowledge Hub Against Plastic Pollution
