Jellyfish or plastic bag? New VR movie dives in to distressed waters

Think about for a second that you’re 2 inches tall. Submerged within the ocean (don’t fear, you may breathe!), you hitch a trip on the again of a translucent jellyfish. Instantly, an enormous leatherback turtle swoops above your head, chasing down its subsequent meal. As you get nearer, you understand the floating translucent object is just not one other jellyfish — the turtle’s favourite meals — it’s a plastic bag. Wanting up towards the floor, you discover the daylight is peeking via a thick layer of bottles, containers and different plastic trash.

That is Conservation Worldwide’s new social digital actuality expertise,
“Drop in the Ocean.” 4 gamers are transported underneath water and introduced nose to nose with the worldwide plastic air pollution disaster — from the angle of the creatures that reside in it.

While you’re underneath water in “Drop in the Ocean,” you can be surprised by the sheer quantity of plastic that marine species encounter each day. In reality, by 2050, there’ll seemingly be extra plastic within the ocean by weight than fish.

The answer, explains Jen Howard, director of oceans and local weather for Conservation Worldwide, begins on land — and it’s not simply recycling plastic water bottles and selecting reusable grocery baggage. As an alternative, she stated, we have to rework the best way we take into consideration and use plastics, together with lowering our plastic use.

“Recycled plastic has to become more valuable,” Howard stated. “Right now, virgin plastic — plastic produced directly from natural gas or crude oil — is usually cheaper for companies to use than recycled products.

“One of the key challenges we are trying to tackle at Conservation International is how we can increase the value of recycled plastic to make it more competitive, so that companies actually want to collect and reuse it in their products.”

And if the marine plastic air pollution subject appears insurmountable, don’t despair, counsels Howard: “Solving this problem starts with people who are ready to challenge companies and governments to do better.”

“Drop in the Ocean” premieres at this time on the Tribeca Movie Competition. The movie is narrated by explorers Philippe and Ashland Cousteau and is created from the images of Academy Award-winning micro-photographer Peter Parks. Expertise Conservation Worldwide’s different VR movies, “My Africa,” “Valen’s Reef” and “Under the Canopy,” right here.

“Drop in the Ocean” was co-produced by Conservation Worldwide and Vision3 and made doable with assist from SC Johnson. Extra assist was supplied by Vulcan Productions with tech assist in-kind from HP.

Olivia DeSmit is a workers author for Conservation Worldwide.

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