Green News

by Masha Megrelis

As we continue our confinement, it seems like a good time to reflect on the environment, the urgent climate issues that face us and how we can all be a part of the solution. Here are a few interesting documentaries that deal with various problems contributing to climate change.

“The Clean Bin Project” This is a fantastic documentary about a Canadian couple who try to live as zero waste as possible during one year. Besides documenting their day-today struggles during the project, it also provides a great overview of the larger environmental issues involved in the waste we produce. One moment in the film really struck me - it showed a photo of a Barbie in a cardboard box in 1953 and compared it to the way it’s sold now. The same product went from being sold in one cardboard box to a box with lots of plastic and other unnecessary packaging. The level of waste, everyday worldwide, that comes just from this kind of absolutely unnecessary packaging, is staggering. I rented the film on Vimeo. I believe it’s available on some of the iTunes stores. “Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story” This documentary was created by the same couple who produced the above-mentioned documentary. "Just Eat It” is a real eye-opener about food waste. In this one the couple decided to eat only discarded food for six months. The documentary is available on iTunes.

“The True Cost”

This brilliant documentary explores the environment and social impacts of fast fashion and the consumer culture. Clothes have become so inexpensive that most people buy items, wear them a few times and literally throw them away. The real price tag of this throwaway culture is very high in terms of damage to the environment. There is also an undeniable human cost to it as the fast fashion is manufactured by people in developing countries who work in precarious conditions.

“Plastic Wars”

This is a PBS Frontline documentary that examines our broken recycling system. Many of the issues that we are dealing right now, were already being discussed decades ago. Hopefully, now real solutions will be found to reduce the use of singleuse plastic and to deal with the plastics produced

more effectively.