Thank you for joining our Observance of Earth Day!
Meaningful Movies Offered by the Episcopal Church in Western Washington, Mt. Baker Meaningful Movies, West Seattle Meaningful Movies, First Church Meaningful Movies, Meaningful Movies Port Townsend, Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Meaningful Movies in Kirkland, Beacon Hill Meaningful Movies, Beacon Arts, and the ECWW Bishop’s Climate Justice Task Force are proud to have presented The Story of Plastic – a searing exposé revealing the ugly truth behind plastic pollution and the false solution of plastic recycling.
Over 650 people registered to watch the film and over 100 joined in for the panel/community conversation. (Watch the recording of the discussion below.) We also gratefully accepted over $1900 in donations on behalf of The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF,) Zero Waste Washington, and Meaningful Movies Project.
What’s Next?
TAKE PERSONAL ACTION – Pledge to make plastic a thing of the past!
The world has a plastic problem. We make, use, and throw away millions of tons of it every year, causing big problems for people and the planet. To create a future without plastic pollution, we need to take action to get disposable plastic out of our lives and out of our communities. Feeling up to the task? Take the Plastic Free Challenge for a month of Citizen Muscle actions to combat plastic pollution. Sign up here.
Each week for the next month, The Story of Stuff Project will send you an email with tips and challenges to get disposable plastic out of your life and out of your community. You’ll get suggestions for avoiding plastic waste in your daily life, ideas to reduce plastic in your community at large, and Citizen Muscle action opportunities to fight plastic pollution globally.
TAKE ACTION IN YOUR COMMUNITY – Host a screening of Story of Plastic.
Screening rights are free for grassroots community groups who want to educate their communities about this issue. Here is the host a screening form.
Do a Brand Audit. A brand audit is like a litter cleanup – but in addition to picking up trash from a beach, park, or other public area, participants audit the products, materials and brands that are ending up in the environment. Together with our partners in the #breakfreefromplastic movement, this data will help us hold companies accountable for their waste.
Your brand audit can be big or small: a solo activity, or a public event with lots of volunteers. Either way, you’ll be taking part in a global movement that’s shining a light on the true culprits of plastic pollution. This global data set informs and supports campaigns from The Story of Stuff Project and the #breakfreefromplastic movement, and is already fundamentally transforming the conversation around plastic waste in the environment. Download the guide: Learn more about what’s involved in organizing a brand audit by checking out our organizer’s guide with everything you need. Submit your data: Once you’ve collected your data, add it to the global #breakfreefromplastic dataset. Questions? Email info@storyofstuff.org if you’d like to learn more.
SUPPORT NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE ACTION:
Protecting Our National Parks: The tons of single-use plastic sold across eighty million acres of land managed by the National Parks Service is not compatible with environmental stewardship. We know that plastics, which break down into ever smaller particles, have reached the most remote wildernesses on the planet and are wreaking havoc on living ecosystems. Our National Parks are not immune from these forces. It’s time to take a stand against the sale of unnecessary single-use plastics in our National Parks.
Please sign to call for the removal of single-use plastic beverage bottles, bags, and food ware, and polystyrene products.
Urge your member of Congress: co-sponsor the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act!
Until the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic, the US plastics industry was losing ground. Bans on plastic packaging were spreading like wildfire across municipalities and state capitals, reflecting a growing consensus against a material tainted in the public mind. Then the pandemic struck. As communities across the nation hunkered down at home, the plastics industry drew battle plans to exploit the crisis. At the core of their disinformation campaign, the industry exaggerated the risks of transmitting the virus through contact with surfaces in order to prize open new markets for single-use plastics, re-brand their products around safety and lobby for essential worker exemptions to the social distancing guidelines unavailable to the thousands of small businesses struggling for survival. Across the plastic supply chain, the industry has won environmental rollbacks with deadly consequences, it’s fighting for a tax-payer funded bailout in its drive to lock in a massive expansion of plastic production over the next decade. It’s time to launch a fightback and push for a just transition.
Sign here – and watch this video to learn more.
RESOURCES:
WATCH – The Story of Stuff Project Movies
FAITH BASED LESSONS – For Youth and Teens
ARTICLE – Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
CIRCLES OF HOPE AND RESILIENCE:
The next Circle of Hope and Resilience is on April 30, 2022. These Circles are free and open to the public and offer an opportunity to come together with others in deep listening and shared intention to create a place of safety and support. In the safe space of the circle, you are invited to explore how you are feeling in these times of crisis, and with the support of the circle to connect to your deepest self and emerge with a new understanding about your path forward. In community, uncover seeds of hope and resilience that lie within, or create new ones. Sign up here for the April 30th Circle and/or to learn more.
Panelists:
Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin lives on Klallam land in Port Angeles. He studied environmental studies, chemistry, and system ecology at Oberlin College, and law at Gonzaga University, graduating with highest honors and public service distinction. His legal work focuses on the relative power of the people, governments, and corporations, and structural barriers to ecological democracy. He now works as Policy and Partnerships Manager for Firelands Workers Action/Acción de Trabajadores, doing multiracial working class organizing in Washington’s rural timber counties to fight for a just, green economy. He also serves on the Port Angeles City Council.
Bridgid Normand is the facilitator for Circles of Hope and Resilience. These Circles provide opportunities to come together with others in deep listening and shared intention to create a place of safety and support. In the safe space of the circle, people are invited to explore how they are feeling in these times of crisis, and with the support of the circle to connect to their deepest self and emerge with a new understanding about their path forward. Bridgid is a retired counselor and educator, who has had a mindfulness practice for over 25 years and who has worked extensively to support social emotional learning in schools.
Heather Trim is the Executive Director for Zero Waste Washington where she works to reduce upstream sources of waste, get toxic chemicals out of products, reduce plastic pollution through the organization’s signature producer responsibility policy initiatives. Previously, she worked with Futurewise to prevent runoff from entering our waterways, improve shoreline management practices and policies and address a range of issues from community sustainability, habitats, and climate change; and with People for Puget Sound where she focused on protections for the marine environment.