Plastic documentary screens in Beijing for World Environment Day

Volunteers pick up waste along a riverbank in Zunhua, Hebei province, June 4, 2025. Events were held to raise awareness of environmental protection across China for World Environment Day. [Photo/Xinhua]

A screening of the documentary "Plastic People" was held at the Canadian International School of Beijing for World Environment Day on June 5. Released in 2024, the award-winning film explores humanity's dependence on plastic and the growing threat of microplastics to human health.  

In the film, renowned science journalist Ziya Tong visits top scientific communities around the world, and conducts experiments at home, on food and within her own body. She eventually collaborates with accomplished director Ben Addelman to complete the film, issuing an urgent appeal to all humanity: It is time to re-examine the relationship between humans and plastics.

"Plastic People" highlights the severity of the current problem of microplastics, which widely exist in air, water bodies and the soil. Scientists have detected traces of these invisible particles in human organs, blood and brain tissue, and even the placentas of pregnant women.  

The film notes that approximately 10 to 20 million metric tons of plastic flow from land into the ocean each year. Some floats on the sea surface and spreads with ocean currents, some decomposes into smaller fragments and enters the atmospheric circulation to spread globally, and some sinks to the seabed and is ingested by organisms in the food chain. Today, microorganisms reproduce on the surface of microplastics, making them unique "ecological habitats." Microplastics have become part of the Earth's ecosystem through atmospheric circulation, global dust cycles, water cycles and carbon cycles.