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<\/p>\nFilmmaker Jo Ruxton is the producer of A Plastic Ocean, a documentary released last year to highlight the devastating impact of global plastic pollution on marine environments and the threat it poses to human health.<\/p>\n
Ruxton worked for WWF and the BBC before co-founding the non-profit group Plastic Oceans, which works to raise awareness of the harm done by our addiction to plastic \u2013 and the urgent importance of curbing it.<\/p>\n
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China Dialogue<\/em> (CD): Why are so many of us only just waking up to this problem?<\/strong><\/p>\n Jo Ruxton (JR):<\/strong> I think because we\u2019ve grown up assuming plastic was disposable, and we\u2019ve never questioned the fact it is indestructible. It\u2019s just been part of our lives. And because it\u2019s been a gradual process you start to accept it \u2013 you go to beaches, you expect to find plastic on them. The other thing is the science about the chemicals that attach to plastic and leach from it is all quite new.<\/p>\n For me, going to the centre of the Pacific was the biggest eye opener. I thought there was this giant island of trash but when I got there realised it wasn\u2019t a giant island \u2013 it was these tiny pieces that are all mixed in with plankton. That\u2019s far more insidious. The following year I went to the centre of the Atlantic and of course it\u2019s exactly the same there.<\/p>\n CD: Why should this matter to people everywhere, not just those who live near the sea?<\/strong><\/p>\n JR<\/strong>: It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re in midwest America, every second breath you take has been provided by the ocean. If the oceans get sick, then anything that breathes oxygen is in trouble.<\/p>\n Global plastic production now is more than 300 million tonnes, half of which is for single use. The estimate that goes into the oceans every year is eight million tonnes, which is the equivalent to global plastic production in 1961. Can you imagine 50 years down the line if we\u2019re letting 300 million tonnes go in? Is it going to affect the absorption of carbon dioxide, or the ability to produce oxygen? Because that\u2019s what the oceans do for us. Apart from driving our weather systems, providing us with food, leisure, transport and everything else.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the human health side, which I hadn\u2019t even imagined when I first started making the film. These chemicals, which get into the food chain have been linked to infertility, to cancer, to autoimmune problems, to endocrine disruption, to behavioural problems in the growing child, to foetal development problems. Surely, even people like Trump are going to care about that.<\/p>\n CD: Your film shows a very different view of the oceans than we normally see on TV \u2013 are other media getting it wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n JR<\/strong>: Nature documentaries often portray the oceans as if they\u2019re full of life and pristine and I think give a very skewed view.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the reasons I left the BBC. I worked in the natural history unit for 12 years. And I found it quite frustrating because we were always showing everything as if it was fine. I worked on quite a few shark documentaries and always wanted to get something in about the decimation of shark<\/a> populations. But it always came down to the fact that people want to be entertained, they don\u2019t want bad news.<\/p>\n I think we have an obligation to tell it how it is. The more we show everything to be fine, the more people are going to assume it is and carry on behaving the way they do.<\/p>\n