"Tapped" Urges Its Audience To Conserve And Save Water
There is an island of plastic waste twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and San Francisco. Most of the plastic comes from discarded water bottles.
These are only a few of the alarming facts that the documentary "Tapped" revealed about the water bottle industry when it screened at SMC's Academy of Entertainment and Technology campus this past Thursday evening. Director Stephanie Soechtig joined viewers in a discussion after the screening.
Soechtig decided to make "Tapped" after she saw a short video clip about the plastic waste island. Currently, this garbage patch contains up to 46 times more plastic than it does plankton, and while Americans consume 80 million plastic water bottles every day, only 20 percent of those bottles are recycled.
The film addressed the heavy consumption of water resources in the United States. "By the year 2030, two thirds of the world will be lacking access to clean drinking water," said Christopher Williams, representative for United Nations Habitat, who attended the screening.
Many people in the audience were concerned with the dangers of plastic.
Nick Somers traveled from Santa Clarita to watch the screening after hearing about it from a friend. Somers said that "Tapped" should absolutely be showed in colleges and universities everywhere. "You think you know about bottled water, but this movie opens your eyes," he said.
Hard plastic, the kind found in water coolers, contains a molecule called BPA. More than 200 independent scientists have found connections between BPA and obesity, diabetes, and prostate cancer. Soechtig suggests investing in a reusable stainless steel bottle and drinking the water coming out of the tap. "If we don't refuse the plastic, we'll be living in a plastic world in the future," she said.
Soechtig suggested installing a water filter system for your faucet, something Los Angeles restaurants are now doing. Restaurant owners Neal and Amy Knoll Fraser run the high-end restaurant, Grace, located on Beverly Boulevard. They wanted to create a more sustainable and green business and now offer filtered water to their customers, free of charge, according to the Los Angeles Times.
On March 26, Soecthig and a small crew will be going on a cross-country tour. Their mission is to raise awareness of the issue by having people sign a petition to limit consumption of plastic water bottles. Soechtig and her crew will be traveling in a truck filled with environmentally-friendly canteens and exchanging them for people's plastic bottles.
The tour will be starting in Los Angeles and ending in New York on Earth Day 30 days later. For more information about the pledge and the movie "Tapped" go to www.tappedthemovie.com.