TRASHED: Jeremy Irons Shows Us the Results of Our Consumption

16 Jul, 2012

We buy it, we bury it, we burn it and then we ignore it. Does any­one think about what hap­pens to all the trash we produce?

We keep mak­ing things that do not break down. We have all heard these hor­ri­fy­ing facts before, but with Jeremy Irons as our guide, we dis­cover what hap­pens to the bil­lion or so tons of waste that goes unac­counted for each year.

On a boat in the North Pacific he faces the real­ity of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the effect of plas­tic waste on marine life. We learn that chlo­ri­nated diox­ins and other man-made Persistent Organic Pollutants are attracted to the plas­tic frag­ments. These are eaten by fish, which absorb the tox­ins. We then eat the fish, accu­mu­lat­ing more poi­so­nous chem­i­cals in our already bur­dened bod­ies. Meanwhile, global warm­ing, accel­er­ated by these emis­sions from land­fill and incin­er­a­tion, is melt­ing the ice-caps and releas­ing decades of these old poi­sons, which had been stored in the ice, back into the sea. And we learn that some of the solu­tions are as fright­en­ing and toxic as the prob­lem itself.

Having faced the worst through much of TRASHED, Jeremy Irons turns to hope. He goes in search of solu­tions. From indi­vid­u­als who have changed their lives and pro­duce almost no waste, to increas­ing anti-waste leg­is­la­tion, to an entire city which is now vir­tu­ally waste-free, he dis­cov­ers that change is not only essen­tial, but happening.

For more infor­ma­tion visit www.trashedfilm.com.

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