If you love Planet Earth, LIFE, and other nature shows on fascinating animal life, you won’t want to miss this new documentary on the latest endangered species — The plastic bag!
Created by local environmental nonprofit Heal the Bay, this 4-minute video dubbed “The Majestic Plastic Bag” takes up the nature show style in a hilariously deadpan mockumentary, complete with a sturm-und-drang soundtrack and a narrator with a British accent who describes the journey of the plastic bag with breathless melodrama: “It is now nightfall, and our highly advanced night vision cameras have managed to capture, for the first time in history, a plastic bag in pitch black. Phenomenal.”
The mockumentary’s extra ironic because its American Beauty-esque videography of the plastic bag is at times rather beautiful — and because the plastic industry has actually tried to portray the plastic bag as an endangered species with its “Save the Plastic Bag” campaign — a campaign that’s delayed city and county-level plastic bag bans and fees with lawsuits and threats of lawsuits.
All those delays will hopefully come to an end this month, when the senate votes on AB 1998 — a bill to ban disposable plastic bags and virgin paper bags come January 2012. If passed, Californians will only be able to get disposable paper bags made with at least 40 percent recycled content. And even then, reusable bag forgetters will have to pay a quarter to buy the recycled disposable bags.
Heal the Bay’s now urging Californians to call their state senators to support AB 1998. I feel quite lucky, because my state assemblymember Julia Brownley actually authored AB 1998 — which is co-sponsored by my state senator Fran Pavley, who coincidentally just confirmed me as a Facebook friend today. Hi Fran!
Call your state senator to find out how he or she is voting (you can find your senator’s phone number here). And if your senator, like mine, is already behind the bill, send a letter to California Senate President Darrell Steinberg expressing your support for AB1998.
Earlier:
>> Bag fee means bag free — or what shoppers in D.C. do to save 5 cents
>> Bring your own bag: How to BYOB in easy eco-style
>> Sunday solutions: Banning and taxing plastic bags
This was funny up until they showed short segments of aquatic wildlife getting caught in plastic. :(
Comment by Phoebe — August 16, 2010 @ 1:10 pm
Got me laughing hard but I worry if any bags were harmed during filming as I didn’t see the usual disclaimer at the end.
Regardless I hope they are banned
Comment by RJ — August 17, 2010 @ 7:29 am
Absolutely brilliant. Bravo to Heal the Bay! I hope they are able to circulate the video far and wide, considering the time and money it must have cost to produce the mockumentary.
Comment by Beyond Green — August 17, 2010 @ 11:10 am
Not only is this video funny but it also hits a certain note with me. I have been thinking recently that “green” issues can be a little sensible – don’t do this, don’t do that and so on. I think we need to make being green a more welcoming and enjoyable prospect and including humour in that is certainly a step in the right direction.
Richard @ Wildlife Blog´s last blog ..The Nature Photography Cookbook Review
Comment by Richard @ Wildlife Blog — September 7, 2010 @ 6:15 am