Despite knowing the damage that plastic waste causes to the environment, global plastic production and use aren’t slowing down. In fact, roughly 1 million plastic bottles are produced every minute.
A new short film, titled “Humanity’s Impact,” attempts to make a statement about the negative impact on plastic production and aims to contribute to positive social change around waste and recycling.
This animated short film, created by directors Sil van der Woerd and Jorik Dozy of Studio Birthplace, takes place in an American suburb in the 1960s.
The suburb is filled with plastic test dummies, and every second, 20,000 plastic bottles are poured down on top of them. Soon, the entire suburb is flooded with plastic, and viewers can see just how quickly humans are polluting the planet with the current rate of plastic production and waste.
The film also points out that only 9 percent of the plastic gets recycled. The rest ends up burned or dumped into landfills or oceans.
In a statement on Studio Birthplace’s website, the film’s directors explained that they wanted to expand viewers’ awareness of plastic waste in a way that numbers and statistics alone cannot. They believe that a deeper understanding of “humanity’s impact” on the planet is needed before true change can occur.
To further increase the film’s impact, it comes with an Augmented Reality (AR) app that allows users to interact with it on a more personal level. Wenhao Tan, who assisted with the production of the film, explained that he and his team developed new ways to use CG technology so that they could create the film in a “non-clinical way” and retain the creativity of the directors.
More information on the project is available through Studio Birthplace’s website. Viewers can download the mobile AR app through the website as well.