Anna Cummins

PLASTICIZED is a film that places the viewer aboard a transatlantic expedition, as if one of the crew, revealing the unembellished evidence that the human footprint has reached every corner of the earth, even if we have not been there. Despite rumors of massive garbage islands, an immeasurable amount of plastic pollution of all sizes is floating throughout every major ocean in the world. With the numerous ghost nets of trash or larger windrows of rubbish dominating the the occasional headlines, tiny bits of plastic particulate from frail chunks is the overwhelming contaminant that is secretly infiltrating all levels of sea life like a cancer.

Every km of ocean now contains an average of 74,000 pieces of plastic. A 'plastic soup' of waste, killing hundreds of thousands of animals every year and leaching chemicals slowly up the food chain. In Holland, scientists found plastic in the stomachs of 95% of all fulmar birds. In Germany, plastic has been found to affect the reproductive systems of animals, while in the US, conservationists are seeing increasing numbers of dolphins die in agony, their guts blocked with rubbish. What will be the long term impact of this 'plastic pollution'? Can anything be done to clean up our oceans?