Plastic is vital in so many ways to our modern way of life and well-being—but not all forms of it.
Single-Use Planet airs Monday, April 21 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI & PBS apps.
In search of why evermore single-use plastic debris enters the ocean despite all efforts to recycle, Single-Use Planet goes upstream to where millions of tons of raw plastic are being made amidst the ruins of America’s bygone steel industry in Pennsylvania. The special also looks at the economic and political realities that have boosted the new industry—realities reaching all the way to rural Louisiana where plans are laid to build the biggest plastic plant in the world. Can the powerful industry be persuaded to temper their production of single-use plastic? Our search leads to Washington D.C. and finally to France.