Pop-culture against plastic bags

It’s great when people who have influence start a conversation about environmental issues, because they are being heard. I have always thought that if something is backed by the pop-culture it becomes more popular, especially among the youth. There is a rap band in a small country in Europe called Estonia that actually made a song called “Plastic bag”. They got their inspiration when visiting Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney (you can learn more about the museum here). They were walking with a tour guide through the museum when they were taken to a room that had the most dangerous killer in the world in it. When they walked in the room there was a plastic bag in front of them. They were told how polluted the oceans are and how much harm it does to the birds, turtles, and etc. When they got back to Estonia they wrote a song about this ruthless killer, and they wrote it as if the plastic bag was telling its life story.

The song talks about how at first the bag was nothing and was thrown away, but then the wind carried it in the sewer and from there on to the ocean. It felt so powerful there with other plastic bags, doing its polluting and killing. The video is pretty dramatic but I think that it is perfect for this song. It should be dramatic and scary because the pollution that we are facing is just that.

When I talked to the author of the song Henry Kõrvits he told me that when he heard the staggering number of animals that are killed by plastic bags he was shocked. He also told me that the goal of this song was not so much to blame the plastic bag itself and ban them, but instead show that when people are not mindful about disposing plastic it can have catastrophic consequences to the environment. Imagine what an impact a popular band can make in the minds of the people who listen to them, especially young people. It can make them think about issues they have never paid attention to, maybe never even heard that it is an issue. It can make them change their habits and realize that it is as serious as it sound in that song.

Check out the song here (the song is in Estonian, but I think the video is self-explanatory) :