'Ripples of Plastic' Documentary, an Examination of Lake Erie's Plastic Pollution Problem, Comes to the Capitol

“Ripples of Plastic” is the debut feature-length ecology documentary from local filmmaker Chris Langer. Credit: Wonderhouse Films

Are you cognizant of how many particles from grocery bags or water bottles are floating around Lake Erie?

That’s the test and premise of the Cleveland premier of Ripples of Plastic, the latest documentary from local filmmaker Chris Langer, of Wonderhouse Films.

(Answer: 22 million pounds of plastic enter the Great Lakes as a whole each year.)

Langer’s film, set to debut at the Capitol Theatre in Gordon Square on January 23, might be the first of its kind to provide a hyperlocal focus on the unseen impacts of the plastic materials that are floating around our lakes—especially when those bags and bottles break down into microplastics.

A cast of scientists and advocates are there as both guides and revealers, from Jill Bartolotta, Lakewood’s sustainability coordinator, to Eddie Olschansky, the founder of TrashFish, the organization that cleans up the Cuyahoga on kayaks.

It’s why Ripples is being shown in coordination with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s Conservation Awareness effort, said Renee Boronka, the director of WRLC’s Conservation Education & Outreach. Ripples trails a partnership with advocate Harvey Webster and Lights Out Cleveland, an organization working to minimize bird-window collisions downtown.

“It’s all about letting people know about the things that are affecting our environment and in our communities,” she told Scene, “and what we can do to be better stewards and protect our natural resources.”

And ideally, better stewards as soon as possible.

Lake Erie has the second highest count of plastic particles in the Great Lakes, according to the Lake Erie Institute. That’s primarily, Boronka said, due to sewage runoff and overflows—like the one at Edgewater Beach—that dump loads of plastic into the water.

All of which, due to erosion, may turn into microplastics, the bane of the particle pollution world. Pretty much impossible to filter out of Lake Erie, microplastics can increase levels of certain cancers and have the capacity to lower sperm levels in men.

They also rattle food ecosystems and tamper with Cleveland’s freshwater fish supply.

“All those bags and bottles all break down into little bits and get ingested by animals in the lake—like walleye,” Boronka said. “And guess who eats them?”

Ripples also stretches into the political, especially Cuyahoga County’s fraught attempt to enforce its plastic bag ban it enacted in 2019. Instead, since then, the County’s opted for a local incentive campaign—Bring Your Own Bags—instead of eliminating the blue throwaways by force of law.

Tickets are $10, and can be purchased through Eventbrite.