Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Drastic plastic
DROWNING IN PLASTIC BBC1, 8.30pm
FROM scenes of tiny seabird chicks vomiting up pieces of plastic, to boats making their way through a river of rubbish, this is a shocking, powerful documentary.
“Our blue planet is facing one of its biggest threats in history,” says wildlife biologist Liz Bonnin, who is genuinely horrified at several moments in this 90-minute film.
Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II brought the plastic crisis to our attention.
Now Liz, who joins expeditions and rescue missions, says: “The world has been shaken by the plastic crisis, but can we turn the tide before it’s too late?”
The damage is shocking to see and a load of horrifying statistics are laid bare.
Around the globe, every minute, we buy a million plastic bottles, a million disposable cups and two million plastic bags.
Every minute a rubbish truck load of plastic ends up in the ocean.
Trillions of pieces of plastic are literally choking marine animals in the sea.
In the opening scenes, Liz travels to a remote island off the coast of Australia, the nesting site for a population of flesh-footed shearwaters.
The chicks are helped to regurgitate the deadly plastic. “It’s really hard to watch,” says Liz. In Indonesia, she watches as a raft of plastic rubbish travels down a main river, where fishermen now collect the stuff to sell instead of fish.
In America, she joins a mission to save an entangled grey seal pup and elsewhere she meets the inventor of a 600-metre garbage collecting device.
A fascinating film that will spark important debate.