Garbage Island
Vice sails to the North Pacific Gyre, collecting point for all of the ocean's flotsam and home of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: a mythical, Texas-sized island made entirely of our trash.
As long as it's existed, the middle of the Gyre has been a naturally occurring point of accumulation for all the drifting trash in its half of the ocean. Once upon a time, flotsam circled into the middle of the Gyre and (because up until the past century everything in the world was biodegradable) was broken down into a nutrient-rich stew perfect for fish and smaller invertebrates to chow on.
The problem with plastic is, unless you hammer it with enough pressure to make a diamond, it never fully disintegrates. Over time plastic will photodegrade all the way down to the individual polymers, but those little guys are still in it for the long haul. This means that except for the slim handful of plastics designed specifically to biodegrade, every synthetic molecule ever made still exists.
I wanted to show this to my Middle School students and had to stop the “Documentary???” Due to the potty mouth reporter on the boat. I am not against a curse word or two, However this guy dropped a “F” bomb every 5 secs. On the documentary.
The underlying message of this documentary is important for everyone to see but....
What is with the awkward make out scene?? This is an environmental documentary, why do we care about who picked up who on their trip out to sea? And the guy constantly dropping the f-bomb made it hard to watch. These 3 VICE children (because they act like children for the majority of the film) came across incredibly ignorant and immature. Huge thumbs down.
I like how the comment by "Josie" implies that normal people relate to idiot behaviour. They should make a documentary about that.
This would have been a great documentary to show my students so they would be informed of this travesty. However, I cannot show this to my middle school students because of the language.
67 min documentary about a boat ride to hawaii, never did see a"Garbage Island" or anything close to it.. complete waste of my time
Why complain/whine about the garbage in the ocean when the garbage coming out of their mouths was just as disgusting. It was hard for us to tolerate too. At least the ocean garbage is silent.
At about 4 minutes, the captain says there is no red/orange plastic bits because fish and birds eat it thinking it's shrimp. Shrimp only becomes that colour after being cooked.. doubt the "shrimp" are cooked before the aforementioned animals consume it... Just saying.
The bespectacled, hipster doofus nerd with the extremely punchable face and who can't seem to get through a sentence without uttering the F word made what should've been a serious documentary into one that I could barely get through.
Gawd!!!!!!!
just a bunch of immature idiots. I didn't learn anything about the Gyre at all
20 minutes watching, still no island of plastic...boring....stopped watching. Poorly done!
This is an interesting topic but the way this documentary has been done is ridiculously crappy. There have been so many non-related (e.g. the kiss between the guy and girl from vice - so cheesy and unnecessary) scenes that should have been left out to pave way for more substantial content. There are ways to make documentaries less boring and more relatable but this isn't one of them. I seriously hope someone would do a better job of exposing this garbage island in a more professional and educated way.
XD
lol this is actually the worst documentary i've ever seen, and i've watched one about barney the purple dinosaur
I'm writing a legal paper on floating debris and was considering using this as a citable source ... until I watched it.
This idea is a great one to document but this guys mouth is just as toxic as the waste he is documenting. He is not a serious reporter and who can respect that?
in middle of ocean and come up with not one but like plastic pieces frack u and all gore!!!!
I was really interested in watching this, until I did. Felt like watching a groups bad vacation video! I'm not particularly offended by "f-bombs" but their constant, often gratuitous, use makes the makers seem uneducated & unprofessional. Production in general was poor but could have been easily tolerated had the substance been there. I suppose research or a different doc is in order for me.
He said the F word 3 times in one sentence in the first 2 minutes... Would be nice if CHILDREN could watch this since it concerns them even more than us.
Encountered an island of trash couples days off the coast of Brazil. 99% of it was actually floating a good foot underwater. But I hopped off the boat and walked along it and it totally sustained my body weight! pretty sure it was a good meter thick.
Took us hours to get boat out of it as we were stuck. I imagine it was a good 100 meters wide but who knows. we hit the edge quite by accident.
Someone please remake this film sans the incredibly annoying, narcissistic, unenthused and seemingly uneducated people.
1 hour of stupid people on a boat and 7 mins of documentary. I forgot there is 30 sec of romance...It's more like a bad vacation home video
Who cares about the language used. It's supposed to be relatable. "Normal" people experiencing extraordinary things that show the disastrous effect we have on our planet. There are enough documentaries with straight laced experts, scientists and political representatives and it's fantastic. We need those, but we also need all sorts of perspectives at this point to show that this issue is truly affecting everyone. You can be a bunch of kids on a boat and see how monstrous the affects of plastic are. Agreed, there could have been more stats.
I find it funny how people can watch something so disturbing, and only feel the need to write about the f*cking curse words being used, just shows how most probably wont do anything but watch and recommend to friends, that's why they need it holsum
Why do we have a name for everyone? Hipsters, goths, democrats, republicans...
I think we should discard this label language and refer to only people or men, women, boys and girls.
The documentary was alright. The language was sloppy for a doc and it is sad that these young men and women have to see what their predecessors have left for us. Does this not make a statement against what is called and honest living? If you grow and use nature to furnish our goods we find less accumulation of waste. It simply composts. But if you work in industry what are you doing? Are you not another cog in the murder machine spitting out more consumer trash for the next generation to deal with? Are not drug makers who use petrochemicals and other synthetics just dumping more poison into our biosphere for later cleanup and removal? Or rather bio-filtration...ie you and I are the filters. Cannabis plastics go away. But our companies don't use them. Huh?
Does any one if there's a subtitle version in spanish of this documentary, I would love to show it to my environmental impact class here at the University of Guadalajara