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.
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.
Asheville GreenWorks (formerly Quality Forward) recently received Keep America Beautiful President’s Circle Award. The President’s Circle Award recognizes exemplary performance made by certified affiliates of the national non-profit to reduce litter, minimize waste, recycle, and beautify their local communities.
In qualifying for a President’s Circle Award, Asheville GreenWorks met Keep America Beautiful’s standards of excellence by conducting an annual Litter Index (a tool used to identify litter “hot spots” and track progress in remedying the problem), calculating the affiliate’s cost/benefit ratio, and engaging volunteers to take greater responsibility for their community environment. In addition,award recipients must conduct activities in Keep America Beautiful’s three core focus areas of litter prevention, recycling and waste reduction, and beautification/community greening. Through quarterly hard-to-recycle events, stream cleanups, dumpsite remediations, tree planting and preservation work, the Asheville GreenWorks has exceeded Keep America Beautiful’s expectations.
Since 1974, Asheville GreenWorks as sought to improve the Asheville-Buncombe community through grassroots, environmentally based “clean & green” projects. If you have an idea for a project please contact: volunteer@ashevillegreenworks.org or visit www.ashevillegreenworks.org
“The more oil we collect, the more we can ultimately bring to Blue Ridge Biofuels to convert into clean, green biofuel to sell back to local residents,” says Melita Kyriakou, Business Administrator at Blue Ridge Biofuels. “This will in turn increase production and decrease cost of biofuel within the region while decreasing the amount of your tax dollars spent on sewer repairs.” The COR Program is accepting every form of used animal and vegetable cooking oil. 35 locally-made recycling bins – recognizable as blue 55, black 100, and black 300-gallon drums outfitted with black skimmers, and custom orange labels – will be placed across Asheville and neighboring counties for used cooking oil including the follow currently on location:
River District Recycling Center (1 Roberts Street Asheville, NC 28801)
Buncombe County Landfill (81 Panther Branch Road Alexander, NC 28701)
Bartlett Arms Apartments (121 Bartlett Street Asheville, NC 28801)
Klondyke Homes Apartments (500 Montford Avenue Asheville NC 28801)
