MCC shows film documenting plastic’s toll on planet

The Environmental Defenders of McHenry County and McHenry County Transition are sponsoring a free screening of the award-winning environmental documentary “Bag It” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, at McHenry County College’s Conference Center, 8900 Route 14, Crystal Lake.

“Bag It” follows “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he tries to make sense of our dependence on plastic bags. Although his quest starts out small, he soon learns the problem extends past landfills to oceans, rivers and ultimately human health.

The average American uses about 500 plastic bags each year, for about 12 minutes each. This single-use mentality has led to the formation of a floating island of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean more than twice the size of Texas.

The film explores these issues and identifies how our daily reliance on plastic threatens not only waterways and marine life, but human health, too. Two of the most common plastic additives are endocrine disrupters, which have been shown to link to cancer, diabetes, autism, attention deficit disorder, obesity and infertility.

Berrier looks beyond plastic bags and discovers that virtually everything in modern society — from baby bottles, to sports equipment, to dental sealants, to personal care products — is made with plastic or contains potentially harmful chemical additives used in the plastic-making process. When Berrier’s journey takes a personal twist, we see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up with us and what we can do about it — today — right now.

The screening is sponsored by the Defenders and McHenry County Transition, and hosted by Lou Marchi Total Recycling Institute at MCC.