“You’re trying to understand where you are in the universe with all this crap in the water.”
An interview with filmmaker and ocean activist Eleanor Church, who lives in Essex
“One night, we saw phosphorescence on the crest of every single wave. The sea was lit up and there were millions of stars – it was incredible. You have this headspace in terms of where you are in the universe which is extraordinary but then you have all this crap in the water around you. It’s an interesting contrast.”
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, like melting glaciers and sweeping wildfires, looms large in the imagination when we’re thinking of concrete examples of the ways in which humans are f**king up the planet. So, I was interested to hear about the film X Trillion, which follows the first all-women expedition to the North Pacific Gyre to witness the plastic pollution first hand, and really excited to interview the film’s director Eleanor Church.
Eleanor and I talk about what the patch actually looks like, why men never get asked about leaving their young kids when they go on big adventures and why an all-women crew was vital to telling this story. I hope you enjoy our chat.
Hey Eleanor, congrats on the release of X Trillion. What’s the movie about?
It’s about a 3000-mile journey from Hawaii to Vancouver, which was organised by Emily Penn of Exxpedition. Emily runs ocean-focused research missions where people discover their role in tackling plastic pollution. [Previous newsletter interviewee Soraya Abdel-Hadi mentions working with Emily here.]
We were 14 women from all kinds of different professional backgrounds, including an engineer, teacher, circular economy expert, agronomist [expert in soil management] and packaging expert. And we sailed through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is the North Pacific Gyre as well. Most people wouldn’t take that route so there has been very little scientific data collected from there – it’s one of the most remote places on the planet.
We were collecting data for 10 different science projects, so looking at plastic particles, which chemicals were bound to them, the plastics in the air… basically looking at how the plastic gets into the environment.
I’ve always pictured the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a giant rubbish dump of plastic floating on the sea. How does it look in reality?
Like blue sea. It’s the densest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world, three times the size of France in terms of surface area, but you can’t see anything. After a big monsoon rain or closer to land you might sometimes see a big accumulation of plastic but by the time it’s reached this remote spot – at one point we were closer to people on the space station above us than people on land – because of the sun and the waves, it’s broken down into microplastics.
We didn’t see a boat for three weeks, but we were surrounded by all these tiny bits of plastic. In the worst part, there were maybe half a million pieces of microplastics in a square km on the surface, but we had 6000 m of water beneath us and we don’t know what was in that.
It must have been overwhelming…
It’s obviously really depressing, and you think what am I meant to do to sort it out? But that’s why I was really keen and happy to make the film. I didn’t want to watch another film about plastic, and I’m interested in the topic so I didn’t see why anyone else would want to watch one, but the expedition gave me the opportunity to make a film about an amazing adventure. It was an expedition where none of us had met before we got on the boat, and we were then in a very small space together for three weeks.
And we had an all-women crew as when plastic pollution gets into the food chain, it disproportionately affects women, by acting as hormone disruptors, which influences fertility, pregnancy, and breastfeeding.
Did you have much sailing experience?
I’d been out a couple of times in Spain, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. But we had a skipper and a first and a second mate and I was excited though also quite stressed as I was leaving my young children, who were one and three at the time, at home. I have filmed in really extreme and quite dangerous situations, like trafficking rings, and illegal fishing and people smuggling, but this felt like the most intense thing I’ve done. As I was leaving the harbour, I was thinking: “You’ve really done it this time Eleanor, what on earth are you doing leaving your children!?” But I really wanted to tell the story and do the best job I could.
Do you think a man would have had the same sort of guilt?
No. I had lots of people who were really supportive and encouraging but said they wouldn’t have done it, and then other people who were outright saying: “No, a mother needs to be at home with her children,” so I felt very conflicted.
I discussed it with my husband, and we work really well as a team like that. And I grew up with my dad and three brothers and I’ve always felt like why should I not do anything that they wouldn’t do?
And you want to be a role model for your kids?
Exactly. I feel quite passionately about the barriers that still need to be broken down. Plastics is a big global issue and women need to be there as part of the solution and they need to be at the decision making table in all kinds of professions, it’s a great opportunity for innovation and doing things differently.
We recently saw the Global Plastics Treaty take a leap forward in Ottawa. That’s an amazing situation which wouldn’t have happened just a few years ago, and it’s because civil society is pushing for this. It’s inspiring and motivating.
Is part of the challenge with ocean plastic that invisibility?
Yes, Emily’s mission statement is about making the unseen seen. Not only because it’s really far away but also because you can’t see a lot of it with the naked eye anyway. It’s a much bigger issue than all the stuff you can see, because you can’t scoop it up and get rid of it, we need to stop putting it there in the first place.
Verity [Wislocki] the producer and I really wanted to make a film that wasn’t worthy or preachy, which is why it’s framed as more of a human story, a story of teamwork with the plastic story interwoven into it.
Was it terrifying?
I swim in the sea regularly and have filmed a lot on big boats, but as we were leaving the harbour in Hawaii, I felt pure fear, and I don’t really feel that very often. It was meant to be really calm and like glass in the middle of the gyre, but it wasn’t like that at all, we had two storms, and the waves were absolutely huge.
But it was also beautiful. One night, five days before we reached land, we saw phosphorescence on the crest of every single wave. The sea was lit up and there were millions of stars – it was incredible. It was like a space out of life and reality that you don’t ever really get. You have this headspace in terms of where you are in the universe which is extraordinary, but then you have all this crap in the water around you. It’s an interesting contrast.
Another extraordinary thing was that as you started approaching land, you could smell it and it made me wonder what we’d been smelling before.
Did the awe of what you saw make the mission seem even more important?
Before we left I would find it anxiety-inducing to walk into Superdrug and see the shelves lined with products, thinking: “Where do we even start with this?”
But being there it felt a little bit calming as we were there doing something useful by collecting the data and samples. The more plastic we pulled up we did begin to get emotionally exhausted by it all, and we were tired and cold as the weather had been horrendous and we’d run out of fresh food. But then one day this pod of dolphins just burst out of the water and we hadn’t seen much marine life until then and it brought a new energy to us to focus and stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start talking about the solutions.
X Trillion is showing at UK cinemas throughout May, and I definitely encourage you to watch it, it really does feel like being on the boat with them all. To find a screening near you or to host a local screening head here.
And to find out more about Eleanor and her environmental film work head here.
Other news:
I really enjoyed this interview on the Finisterre website with surfer Danielle Black Lyons from Textured Waves in the US about how her community group is seeking to “normalise black and brown faces in a primarily white male sport”. I interviewed Chelsea Woody from Textured Waves last year and she was awesome too.
And I liked this Patagonia film on the Shitthropocene – the age of cheap crap, especially for the self-ribbing line “tell me again why your shit doesn’t stink” when discussing why the brand, which is of course in the business of selling clothes with all its associated impact, gets to speak out about these issues.
I recently caught up with some
podcasts and especially recommend this one with former newsletter interviewee Calum Macintyre about the case for direct action, this one with Matt Olson from Gaza Surf Club and this one with Liz Bui and Jeff Martin the brains behind Yulux, the natural rubber alternative to neoprene (which includes a good debunking on the environmental credentials of limestone neoprene).As ever, please fwd this newsletter to anyone who you think might be interested & if you have any story tips on any of these themes pls get in touch.