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My shopping bag | Recycle my waste

“Plastic Bag“
A short film directed by Ramin Bahrani and narrated by Werner Herzog for ITVS’s Futurescapes series.
Published on YouTube, embedded above. Search online for other streams here.

Remember those thin plastic bags that used to be available, free, at the checkout? This is the starting point for Ramin Bahrani’s short film. What lives do these bags lead after the shopping is emptied from them at home? How long do they live? Where do they end their lives? Do their lives ever end? And what if one of them could tell that story for itself (in a droll Bavarian accent)? What would it say? One may think it’s exciting to have finally been chosen, there at the checkout, to fulfil his destiny. To help a shopper carry their shopping home. The shopper-bag relationship is short-lived, but beautiful. But what if that shopper later uses you to pick up her dog’s poo? And put you in a bin? How would you feel about her then, as your life continued, further and further away from hers? You’re not the slightest bit biodegradable. Your life is going to last for ever, starting in a landfill dump. What’s it like to be there with millions of bits of other trash? Imagine being caught in the wind, blown through the countryside, travelling hundreds of miles, over maybe thousands of years, ending up in the sea, with the fish, possibly causing them all kinds of problems. Who and what might you have seen and met on your journey? What would you ponder about your life now its purpose is so far in the past? This film has a silly and unbelievable plot, but its also wonderfully moving, hilarious, thought-provoking. Viewers are surprised to find themselves empathising with an object. Caring about its fate. How its life could have been different. Maybe this is the best way to change people’s minds about the mountains of waste created by capitalism and its commodity culture. Maybe it’s the perfect film to illustrate vital materialism, assemblage theory, affect and/or dark ecology. Even if Bahrani didn’t set out to do so. Maybe you have to watch it to write an essay. Maybe it’s just too long or just plain stuuuuupid. Like a childish spinoff from a well-known movie franchise like Toy Story. Ugh. Watch and read for yourself! This page is a wild ‘follow the thing’ ride into debates about environmental justice and reponsibility.

Page reference: Molly Healy, Josephine Thompson, Daisy Aylott, Lily Andrews, Kate Ward, Charlotte Rooker, James Swain, Edward Denton & Ethan Langfield (2025) Plastic Bag. followthethings.com/plastic-bag.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 77 minutes.