It's not every day that Plastics News gets to quote a celebrity about plastic waste in the environment. It's not that celebrities don't like to talk about plastics and pollution. They do. A lot. Often while touting their own brands or speaking about a sponsor's brands.
Some do more than just talk. Harry Styles, for instance, uses his contract to enforce better recycling and fewer single-use plastics during his tours.
In 2019, the actor Ted Danson shared a table with Plastics Industry Association CEO Tony Radoszewski during a congressional hearing to talk about the environmental impact of plastics. (Danson is vice chair for environmental group Oceana.)
And now Fran Drescher, whose resume includes the sitcom The Nanny, is taking on plastics as part of her role as the new president of the Screen Actors Guild to support an effort by the Plastic Pollution Coalition to "Flip the Script on Plastics."
The effort, supported by Drescher and other actors during a webinar, Assistant Managing Editor Steve Toloken writes, wants to see more TV shows and movies normalizing the use of reusable containers and eliminate or reduce the use of single-use plastics on screen.
A study in November from the PPC looked at how single-use plastics were portrayed across 51 hours of programming on 32 popular TV shows in 2019 and 2020. It found an average of 28 single-use plastic items showed up in each episode, but only 7 percent of the items were disposed of properly on screen.