It doesn’t take much to expose Boris Johnson and his pals these days – the Prime Minister is clearly more concerned about wallpaper than he is Westminster. Wasteminster is a new film from Greenpeace, one that highlights the government’s wrongdoings when it comes to plastic.

The United Kingdom is the second biggest producer of plastic waste per person in the world, with the USA taking home the number one spot. In fact, the grim reality is that the UK is currently producing so much plastic that the government is dumping it on other countries.

It’s hard to imagine the true scale of this plastic problem when it’s written down so Greenpeace have teamed up with the talented animators at Park Village Studios to show what would happen if the daily waste turned up at Number 10 Downing Street.

In the film you will see just how much plastic we palm off on to other countries every day. On average, 1.8 million kilograms a day (688,000 tonnes a year) of our plastic waste ends up dumped on other countries.

Plastic is one of the main contributors to the deaths of thousands of marine birds, sea mammals, and turtles every year. It’s not just harming wildlife and oceans though, it’s harming people too. Plastic being sent overseas is being dumped or burned in the open air, with local communities in places like Turkey and Malaysia reporting serious health problems – such as respiratory issues, nosebleeds, and headaches.

It’s actually illegal for the government to send plastic waste to countries if it’s not going to be recycled. Greenpeace hopes to provoke a reaction from the government, and they hope to do that with Wasteminster: A Downing Street Disaster.

Every line in this short film is an actual quote from Boris Johnson and Michael Gove (voiced by Matt Forde and Jon Culshaw). The UK government has announced some steps to reduce the UK’s plastic production. However, as this film points out so well, it’s clear more needs to be done.

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