Discarded: Addicted to Convenience
Gloria Riviera and Alie Kilts (US 2023)
42 min Episode 1 of 4
The invention of plastic changed the way we live — and now we’re hooked. The journey starts in Louisiana, where plastic is born, to New Jersey, where plastic goes to die… or live again. This episode explores greenwashing, wish-cycling, and our collective culpability as we try to understand how we became so reliant on plastic — despite knowing its harm to the earth and the communities closely impacted.
This is the story of a modern-day Erin Brockovich, set on the Mississippi River in an area known as “Cancer Alley.” Her name is Sharon Lavigne, her community is St. James Parish in Louisiana, and her fight is to keep out one of the largest plastic manufacturing companies in the world. In this investigative four-part series, hosted by Emmy award-winning journalist Gloria Riviera, we discover how our plastic world came to be. Because plastic is everywhere – it has advanced our world, but it has damaged our environment and our health. So what do we do? We look at what’s next for all of us, and how we can learn from communities like St. James to make a difference in our own backyards.
This series is presented in partnership with Only One, the action platform for the planet.
A Lemonada Media original
Hosted by Gloria Riviera
Produced by Alie Kilts