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Try going a day without plastic. Plastic is everywhere and infiltrates our lives in unimaginable and frightening ways. In this touching and often flat-out-funny film, we follow “everyman” Jeb Berrier, who is admittedly not a tree hugger, as he embarks on a global tour to unravel the complexities of our plastic world. What starts as a film about plastic bags evolves into a wholesale investigation into plastic and its affect on our waterways, oceans, and even our own bodies.

We see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up to us and what we can do about it. Today. Right now.

Film Screening of Bag It

When: Thursday, February 16

Where: UNC Asheville campus, Asheville NC (UNCA Humanities Lecture Hall)

Cost:  Free!

The film is sponsored by the Western North Carolina Alliance and the Student Environmental Center at UNC Asheville.  A panel will follow the film with speakers to be announced soon!

What is Bag It?

Produced by Reel Thing Productions in association with the Telluride Institute, Bag It is a powerful look at the impacts of plastics on society. The film focuses on plastic as it relates to our throwaway mentality, our culture of convenience, our over consumption of unnecessary, disposable products and packaging – things that we use one time and then, without another thought, throw them away. But where is AWAY?? Away is over flowing landfills, clogged rivers, islands of trash in our oceans, and even our very own toxic bodies.

Our story follows Jeb Berrier, an average American guy who is admittedly not a “tree hugger,” who makes a pledge to stop using plastic bags. Jeb is not a radical environmentalist, but an average individual who decides to take a closer look at the world’s love affair with plastics. What he discovers is shocking.

The average American uses between 330 – 500 plastic bags a year for an average of 12 minutes before they are discarded (that adds up to about 100-150 BILLION plastic bags used in 2010 in the US alone). There is a floating “island” of plastic and other debris swirling around in the Pacific Ocean known as the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch.’ Unlike most other trash, plastic isn’t biodegradable. Sunlight does eventually “photodegrade” the bonds in plastic polymers, reducing it to smaller and smaller pieces, but it never goes away entirely. And the levels of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean – much of it resembling plankton, i.e., fish food – has at least tripled in the last ten years resulting in plastic entering into our food chain.*

When Jeb discovers that he and his partner are expecting a child, his plastic odyssey becomes a truly personal one. How can they protect their baby from the health dangers associated with plastics? Jeb looks beyond single-use disposable plastics and discovers that virtually everything in modern society – from baby bottles, to sports equipment, to dental sealants, to personal care products – is either made with plastic or contains potentially harmful chemical additives used in the plastic-making process.

Featuring interviews with scientists and experts from around the world, Bag It is a first-person documentary in the style of Michael Moore, asking how we can incorporate healthy, more environmentally friendly practices into our lives, our cultures, and our communities.

“I didn’t expect a movie about plastic bags to change my life in such a deep and profound way. Gripping, funny, intelligent, and sure to change your life.”
- Louie Psihoyos, Director of The Cove