How the world is choking on plastic | DW Documentary
Plastic is everywhere, not just in our rivers and oceans. It permeates the air, soil, and even our bodies. The problem is getting worse, and yet the plastics industry is increasing production.
Environmental lawyer Steven Feit reveals that plastics are the petroleum industry’s growth strategy in the 21st century, even as the world moves away from fossil fuels as an energy source. Sarah Jeanne Royer, an oceanographer, shows the damage microplastics are doing to the coasts of Hawaii. Sharon Lavigne, a retired teacher, fights against pollution and environmental racism in her city, which is home to some of the largest plastic production facilities in the US. The film also follows a photojournalist raising awareness about the problems being caused by single-use plastics in his native Kenya, and lobbyists who aim to convince the industry’s critics that new recycling technologies will make a difference. And one Hamburg-based chemist and inventor has suggestions for how we could solve the world’s plastics problem once and for all.
Is the plastics industry listening? Can people trust it to take responsibility for plastic products after the end of their life cycle? And what solutions are there in a world that is increasingly choking on plastic?
#documentary #dwdocumentary #dwdocs #plastic #environment
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Video “How the world is choking on plastic | DW Documentary” was uploaded on 10/22/2025 by DW Documentary Youtube channel.
Outstanding journalism here
Stop this madness or ied
CO2 is not a green house gas.
Clean burn it for energy. Forget about the BS of C-Change.
We shouldn’t be "stopping hunger around the world". Stop interfering in other people's nations.
How do you stop Bk/Bns throwing plastics on the streets, or directly by dumping, and washing out to sea via their rivers? People didn't ask for plastics, it was the global corporations that enforced them. People were happy with paper, glass, wax, wood, tin, etc. It's like how the same are forcing plastic paint brushes on us. We are happy with the better real wood, tin, and animal bristle type.
I'm visually impaired I can't read but, from the audio I hear plastics are great!👍
My problem is the people who try to spread awareness of all this stuff like plastic waste, are clothing, glosbal warming, over fishing, de forestation are insufferable and id rather work against them then with them
0:02 sweet asmr
there is a question i keep asking my self can we live with out plastics to save us and this planet
I remember living in COMMIEFORMIA and they started charging for grocery bags 😡 what a PAIN IN THE A$$ ! Even when we did remember to put them in the car, we forgot to take them in the store!! And ended up buying them anyway and they weren't the regular, thinner plastic bags the stores used before, they were 3 maybe 4x's as thick!! Thank God we escaped in '20 and our current state doesn't have bag fees and when we accumulate too many ,we take them back to the store recycling box.
This works so much better!
we are going to die..
And They (manufactures) want you to pay for it
Love how they shift blame onto us 😃I use glass mostly at home 🥛Even at the shops buy items in glass only 90% of the time 😎
Collecting plastic with plastic bags ?..Kindof sums up the futallity of it all 😢
Plastics are produced from fossil fuel oil, gas and coal through a petrochemical & energy intensive processes. With the inevitable decline in the use of oil, gas and coal for energy production the fossil fuel industry is promoting the use of single use plastics; along with polyester textiles Fast Fashion, as their economic life line.
In Canada at least Ontario they banned plastic grocery bags and straws…they are literally gone within months…no longer filling dump sites and blowing across fields…there are always other ways.
And OUTLAW single use product!
If science is clever enough to make plastic, then those same corporations must fund further science to rearrange those same molecular structures to “green” fuels. NOW.
From the rubbish in LEO flying around us to the depths of the oceans.
WE HAVE . . .
At 13:26, watch Ingemer Buhler, of a Plastic trade association, praise plastic's advantage but did anyone notice the water bottle and his cup for drinking the water?… Its all made of glass!!… While he is paid millions to promote plastic, he drinks water from a glass bottle and glass cup!!… What a hypocrite!!…
While some profit… others pay the cost!!…Ingemer Buhler profits by promoting plastics, while he himself drinks glass bottled water and in a glass cup!!!
This is sad and disturbing.
28:00 i feel like the Kenyan journalists saying "we are not going the right way" is an exaggeration, probably because they're on DW but being a Kenyan who witnesses the effective plastic ban on plastics, that was the best move the government ever made on our environment, we're not there, but we're somewhere, have you seen india?
Stop plastic like a seal for a rocket engine or a rubber part to keep a car engine from leaking or car tires sure.
But a plastic bag for food or a plastic rap around food like meat no plastic bottles even if it's a thermist glass yes plastic no.
Plastic pots for plants no use clay pots or plant in the ground.
Plastic resin for a windshield sure but can use natural rubber from a rubber tree sure as well.
Plastic bumpers or car parts to reduce weight hell no use aluminum or something yes there my be more weight but your less likely to die and if it gets damage guess what it's a dent that most likely can be fixed a plastic part will Crack and need replacement so no plastic is not the future.
I mix my plastic waste with the clay soil around me and make adobe with colored bits in there. The plastic adds bulk and the clay keeps it under control. You could make all kind of building materials
This is evil, soon we all die