MCC Daily Tribune

Save the Date - Sustainability Day Event - Monday October 23, Empire Room at Noon

The fourth Wednesday of October is Sustainability Day. In recognition of that day, the Sustainability Committee is putting on a Break Free from Pollution program featuring a showing of the video Smog of the Sea in the Empire Room on Monday 10/23 at NOON.

The film’s website states “The Smog of the Sea chronicles a 1-week journey through the remote waters of the Sargasso Sea. After years of hearing about the famous “garbage patches” in the ocean’s gyres, the crew is stunned to learn that the patches are a myth: the waters stretching to the horizon are clear blue, with no islands of trash in sight. But as the crew sieves the water and sorts through their haul, a more disturbing reality sets in: a fog of microplastics permeates the world’s oceans, trillions of nearly invisible plastic shards making their way up the marine food chain. You can clean up a garbage patch, but how do you stop a fog?

Using nostalgic super-8 footage, sparkling underwater cinematography, an original score by Jack Johnson and shipmate Simon Beins, and live action footage of the crew’s research, The Smog of the Sea provides a new perspective on the once pristine oceans, and makes an artful call to action for rethinking the scourge of the sea — single use plastic. Directed by Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Ian Cheney (King Corn, The City Dark, The Search for General Tso).”

“What we know now is that plastic in the ocean quickly shreds into microplastics and joins the SMOG of plastic polluting our oceans,” said Dr. Marcus Eriksen, 5 Gyres Co-Founder and Director of Research. “This new research revelation is driving solution inland, to the top of the watershed where the problem starts.  But we need to return to sea, to educate crews, understand more, and monitor our successes on land.” 

Film Screening at Monroe Community College
Date: Monday, October 23
Time: Noon to 1:00 pm
Location: Empire Room, Brighton Campus

Jason Szymanski
Sustainability Steering Committee
09/28/2023