I often joke that I know more about plastic than anybody working in finance should. I’m a huge fan of reading research, so when we started the Plastic Free Chester campaign in 2017, I read plenty about the problems of plastic pollution and did lots of talks.
David Attenborough’s Blue Planet marked a high-profile boost in raising the profile of plastic pollution, which, in-turn, spurred on the Zero Waste store culture and the rise of reusables.
Unfortunately, the pandemic, as it did for most things, set all this back hugely — and all the motivation we saw pre-COVID to move away from single use plastic took a bit of a step back — but we kept on campaigning. We helped as many regions in Cheshire as possible to reach plastic free status via Surfers Against Sewage, talked about Refill, the City to Sea campaign, and our own reusable Cheshire Cup Club refillable coffee cup scheme, among other things.
Off the back of all this, it was great to be contacted by the team behind X Trillion, a feature film following a journey of environmental discovery from a group of women travelling the ocean. I hope the showing of this film across the UK can reinvigorate the movement to ditch single use plastics in the UK.
14 Women, 3,000 Nautical Miles, X Trillion Pieces of Plastic
Eleanor Church is the director of X Trillion. It’s been a pleasure to speak to her over the last few weeks in anticipation of the film’s showing in Chester with Picturehouse. Detailing a gruelling journey of ‘eXXpedition’s’ led by Emily Penn. The film follow the all-female group as they sail 3,000 miles across the North Pacific Ocean through the densest accumulation of ocean plastic on the planet — in order to make the unseen seen for the entire world.
Michelle Byle, a packaging designer, sorting microplastic samples collected in a trawl in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Eleanor had this to say: “We were a crew of women with different skills, goals and motivations, brought together to witness and record the true extent of the plastic pollution crisis – with a focus on micro plastics and their toxic impact on female bodies in particular. We all emerged transformed by the experience and are committed to telling the story of what we witnessed and working to find solutions.
“The film is about this global crisis, but more than that it highlights the crucial role women play in helping to change systems and find solutions to the big problems facing humanity.”
Emily Penn, eXXpedition Founder, has this aim: “We hope the film will take audiences with us on this journey, so that they too are inspired about all the ways they can be changemakers. We don’t need everyone to do everything, we need everyone to do something.”
If you can’t make the film’s August showing at Picturehouse, get in touch and we will see what we can do to potentially organise a second screening later in the year.
Helen Tandy, Founding Director.
