Hollywood takes aim at single-use plastics

Hollywood wants to change how we feel about single-use plastics. It will be interesting to see if the effort gains any traction and what impact it has on public opinion.

I'd argue that the initiative, called "Flip the Script on Plastics," shows that the Hollywood establishment is trailing public opinion, not leading it. TV and movie audiences will not be surprised to see reusable bottles and cloth grocery bags on screen. Also, TV audiences are used to hearing environmental messages. Remember "Recyclops" from The Office— That wasn't just a funny cold open; it was part of a coordinated 2009 effort called "Green Is Universal," when many NBC shows highlighted a green message.

Plastics industry readers may see "Flip the Script" as an attack on plastics and immediately argue that other materials — paper, metal, glass — also have an impact on the environment, often worse than plastic. But that's a symptom of plastics' image problem. Any effort aimed at single-use products is going to get more traction in the public and the media by emphasizing single-use plastics.

Here's a trivia question for you to try out on your friends: What do these people have in common? Jackson Browne, Daphne Zuniga, Kyra Sedgwick, Chris Hemsworth, Jeff Bridges, Ted Danson, Sam Waterson, Morgan Freeman, Adrian Grenier, Jeremy Irons, Ed Begley Jr. and William Shatner. Answer: They've all spoken out against single-use plastic pollution.

And now you can add actress Fran Drescher to the list. Drescher, known for her starring role in The Nanny in the 1990s, became president of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in September. Since then, she's formed a green council to work with environmental groups.

Steve Toloken's recent story about "Flip the Script" highlighted a report by the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the University of Southern California's Annenberg Norman Lear Center, which looked at how single-use plastics were portrayed across 51 hours of programming on 32 popular TV shows in 2019 and 2020. The report found an average of 28 single-use plastic items in each episode, and it noted that depictions of littering were common.

"We had to be taught not to litter, and we have to be taught not to use single-use plastics," Drescher said in a recent Plastic Pollution Coalition webinar. The anti-litter message is great; people are too comfortable throwing away used plastics. When I covered packaging conferences and trade shows in the 1990s, the major theme was always convenience, a trend that encouraged massive growth in single-use plastics. Now the theme is sustainability, and the market is changing rapidly as a result.

But to be clear, the 1990s are over. There's nothing wrong with encouraging consumers to recycle and to use reusable cups, bags, bottles and other packaging. But I'd still prefer if "Flip the Script" targeted all single-use products, not just plastics.

Don Loepp is editor of Plastics News and author of the Plastics Blog. Follow him on Twitter @donloepp.