A whole lot of ‘Junk’ that you’d probably like to see

The Charleston Music Hall has said to be set to screen the plastic pollution activist documentary “Junk” at the end of April in 2018.

As many people know, and as we all know by talking about pollution in our class, there is A LOT of junk in our oceans and clearly, it’s not getting any better. Dr. Marcus Eriksen, an international plastic pollution expert, wrote a book all about this oceanic junk titled, Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic Pollution. The book’s content relays just what the title describes it to convey: a man, which is Eriksen, is on a journey through the ocean and is buoyed only on a raft that is actually made out of the plastic junk found within our seas.

The film itself is about a 27-minute long documentary based on Eriksen’s book and was filmed while he and several others were floating for 88 days on a raft made out of 15,000 plastic bottles in the North Pacific Gyre.

“In the Spring of 2008, 3 marine scientists built a raft from 15,000 plastic bottles, 30 sailboat masts, and a Cessna 310 aircraft fuselage. We launched on June 1st, beginning an adventure from Long Beach, California to Hawaii. We ran out of food, outran 3 hurricanes, and met a female rower in the middle of the ocean. It was an amazing adventure to bring attention to the rising plague of plastic waste in our ocean.” – Eriksen

You can watch the film at the Charleston Music Hall, which is located at 37 John Street, on Sunday, April 29th at 6:30 p.m. Tickets will only be $8 and after the film there will be a panel discussion with Eriksen himself! Others on the panel will also include Chris Jones, who is the film’s director, and Anna Cummins, who’s another leader in the ocean plastic pollution movement.

James Cameron, a filmmaker and deep ocean explorer, describes Junk as an “adventure far from shore, the spirit of exploration, and the fight to save our oceans — all in a gripping narrative that is also a parable for our time.” I highly recommend everyone planning to take a break from studying during finals week to go out and see this film. I will more than likely be there, so we can all be involved in the panel discussions together! 🙂

This is a short trailer to show what the film will be like: