On Tuesday 9th of April the SCS Green Schools Committee was delighted to welcome the well-known actor Jeremy Irons to our school to introduce the documentary film ‘Trashed’. This film, which Jeremy produced, researched and narrated, highlights the many negative impacts of the waste that our lifestyle produces.
It is a hard-hitting film in places but gets over the message of the importance of reducing our waste for health, environmental and social reasons.
The film explores the various ways that societies have tried to deal with their trash, eg. dumps, incinerators and burying it, but shows that the massive volume of plastic that we are now producing has overwhelmed the systems and has polluted our soil, air, rivers and oceans with toxic chemicals that can have devastating effects on human health.
The students watching the documentary found it very thought provoking and had some probing questions for Jeremy Irons at the end, to which he responded with honesty. Things have not improved since the film was made in 2012, but he encouraged everyone to do their bit by encouraging their family members to cut down on buying plastic whenever they can eg. take your own bag to the shops and don’t buy fruit that’s wrapped in plastic. Also, he asked us not to buy lots of fast fashion as clothes waste (which almost always contains an amount of plastic fibres) makes up a high proportion of the mountains of rubbish poisoning the planet.
In talking with the Green Schools Committee afterwards he encouraged them to carry out some detective work to find out how much plastic waste in school is recycled and what happens to that recycling when it leaves the school.
It was a sobering and thought-provoking afternoon, and all agreed that everybody should watch the film ‘Trashed’ to realise the effect plastic is having on our lives and the future lives of those who come after us. We were very grateful to Jeremy Irons for taking the time to come and explore this important subject with us and for encouraging us to take responsibility for helping to take care of our world.