Ziya Tong: Shiny Plastic People
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Welcome everyone to the Jan Arden podcast and show. What a special day it is today. For one thing, I'm at home, which feels really good.

and I have a couple of days off. I'm still in the midst of the Rick Mercer extravaganza, but with us today is the amazing Zaya Tong and also the amazing Caitlin Green. Sarah Burke is not joining us today. She's got some family stuff going on. So Zaya Tong, how would you introduce yourself? Tell the people who you are. Oh gosh, that is so awkward, Jan. How

supposed to introduce myself? I don't know. It's like when you're asked to write your own bio. I've been asked to write my own bio so many times. Totally. I have no idea how to do it. I'll give it a shot if you want. I think it's really interesting how people perceive themselves and how they're making their way through the world. Because like, what do you do? It's almost like a party trick question. Oh, what do you do? And it's more like, who are you?

Like, what do you like to do? So I'm going to leave it for you to decide. I like to make regular appearances as the third co-host on the Jen Arden podcast. Occasionally, that's one of...

One of my big highlights. This podcast certainly feels like home for me. I love being on here. I guess now I'm a multi-hyphenate person, right? You know, some folks may know me from Daily Planet, which I hosted for a decade. So I've been a science broadcaster for close to two decades now. And I wrote a book called The Reality Bubble. It's so good. It's so good. Oh, thank you. It's about kind of eviscerating and overturning the system and our blind spots.

And now, somehow or other, I really don't know how, I'm a director, which I think is hilarious. I'm a newbie director. This is my first film, and I've just made a film called Plastic People, which I actually told you about the last time I was here when we were just starting on it. And generally, I'm a human being first, though, and I love all our fellow Earthlings. That's basically me. And you are incredibly...

you are empathic, you are an animal lover, you are a vegan, you are inspiring people all the time to look at life through a plant-based lens. And, you know, we're all wondering how we can make the planet better. And you and I have talked about this ad nauseum. Well, it starts at the tip of your fork and the tip of your tongue. And it's amazing what a few of those shifts can create in how you feed your family and

And it may seem like kind of, oh, I'm so sick of hearing about this, but it is super important. But Zaya, today you are, you're a director of this film, Plastic People.

I've caught in little wisps of what's happening with this film, and I'm dying to see it. And I'm sitting here very apologetic before you today. I have not yet seen the film. But let's talk about the catalyst of where this began and what prompted you to look at basically, I guess, microplastics today.

in our world and in our bodies, essentially? Where did it begin? Well, I think, you know, there's two big reasons why I wanted to work on this film, right? The first is I really wanted to start to make this connection between planetary health and human health, right? And if we trash the planet, we literally trash our bodies, right?

So that's one thing. The second thing is a really important connection, which is to do with the oil and gas industry. And we know that the oil and gas industry is responsible for some really massive problems on our planet right now, right? That's almost an understatement. But the problem is they're invisible. So this is just like the stuff I used to talk to you about when

with the reality bubble stuff that you can't see so the climate crisis and carbon dioxide you can't see it coming out of your tailpipes you can't see it coming out of buildings invisible but you know devastating microplastics the same thing right because plastics made from oil and gas also invisible we're breathing them in right now as all of us are here right now every listener is breathing in microplastics we can't see them but then i started thinking about this and i was like okay

I know from like having worked doing the BP oil spill, for example, that when you see an oil spill, people are like, oh my God, the oil spill, let's go clean it up and chop, chop. They clean that stuff up quick. So I wanted to show people what an oil spill looks like in the human body. And so essentially that is what this film is about. Really being able to see how we have trashed the planet and our human body while we're at it.

Where do you begin that journey though, Zaya? It's a huge question. Where did you start?

With poo. It's incredibly unglamorous, but that was the first phone call that I got from Rick Smith, who is the executive producer, also the president of the Canadian Climate Institute. And while all this sounds super fancy, Rick and I had been working on a plastics panel together, and he wrote an amazing article in the Globe and Mail where he had tested his own poo for microplastics. He was the first person on earth to do it. And then he was approached by White Pine Pick,

Hey, let's make a film about microplastics. Nobody has done it on this scale. And so, of course, we had just worked together. And so he called me up and he's like, hey, Zaya, how would you feel about filming your own poo? If you're just joining us here on the Jan Ardy podcast,

It's not glamorous. My job is not glamorous. Other people have glamorous TV jobs and film jobs. This is how I got into it, Jan. There's a lot of magical information in shit. There sure is. And one of the things that I had written about previously was actually

wolves, the sea wolves for Canadian Geographic. And of course what they were doing, because the indigenous people don't allow you to tag wolves like Western scientists do because wolves are their family. So one of the best ways to study wolves is through wolf stool, wolf feces, scat, right? Essentially it provides the DNA, it provides the location of where the wolves are going, whatever, you know, so, you know, what they're eating, all this sort of fascinating stuff. So she

Chit is really, really interesting. When you get into it, it really is. Not to get off track too much, but I know that when my father had C. diff, this was years ago, he's long since gone. But he really struggled with it for a number of years. It sort of came in and out of his gut health for a long time. And anyone who doesn't know what C. diff is, a C. difficile, it's a, you know,

one of the bad little bugs that gets into your system and wreaks havoc. And, and you can basically, well, you, you can succumb to having it. It's, it's very hard, but they wanted to give him a feces transplant. I was just going to ask if he had one of those. No, he didn't. He was, he was too, he was, he had dementia and there was a lot of extenuating circumstances, but I remember sitting across from our family doctor and,

And he said, they're just really starting to do it in the last year. So this would have been nine, 10 years ago, almost. I was like, what? But they take a healthy poo from somebody else. I mean, I'm not really explaining this properly, but basically they put the healthy poo in

into the sick person's body and all those little bugs get in there and save the day. Absolutely makes a difference. It's one of the best treatments for this sort of thing now. So yeah, when your dad was approached, it was fairly novel and now it's very common.

So did he find microplastics in his stool? Sure did. The journey began with poo and then it started you down a road, obviously. Yeah, exactly. And really sort of checking out, you know, not only the microplastic in my stool, but also in my blood. We ended up visiting people who have found it in the placenta. And as Caitlin knows, of course, because we were very fortunate, this film has already been covered in the New York Times and in Variety, you

groundbreaking research with scientists in Turkey who found it in the human brain.

So it's everywhere. What does that mean? Well, it's weird, Jan, because when you can actually see, as I did, something like other people's garbage, like other people's shopping bags or yoga pants in your blood, you really start to think twice. Like, I mean, we read about this stuff all the time. We just read very recently there was that study that came out about plastic two days ago, I think it was, plastic in every male testicle that was tested, right? Right.

So we know that it's everywhere. We know that it's absolutely everywhere and we know that the impacts are really quite dangerous. So there was another study that was done out of the New England Journal of Medicine and what they found was that people who have microplastics in their carotid arteries –

They were at much higher risk for stroke, heart attack, and death, 4.5 times more at risk because the microplastics, I think the idea here is, that's what they're surmising, is the microplastics kind of make the plaques more brittle, and then they can kind of fall off. And then if it jams your bloodstream, right, then you can have a stroke, you can have a heart attack, what have you.

So really dangerous. Again, invisible threats are incredibly dangerous. And we're not used to these things as human beings, right? We're used to, we still, we talked about this before. We have sort of caveman perception still. We're like, oh, have to be afraid of the lion that comes or the truck that's coming. These days, the things that we need to actually be most afraid of, we cannot see. So it became really important to do a documentary to show people

on the big screen exactly what this looks like. What is the threat? And the reaction has been incredibly positive because, you know, people care, people act. And that's the thing I love about docs. They do change things. They can change policy. They can change people's personal actions. And hopefully, you know, with the plastics treaty that is being negotiated right now, we can change this. We can change the law.

Caitlin has questions. I know she does. I always have questions. Okay, because I just know that for me, I hear about all this stuff and I believe it right away. I don't second guess it. I believe that it's there. I believe that it's damaging. But there's so many different horrible things happening at once. And it feels like it's being perpetrated by these massive, very hard to control, very hard to change entities like us.

the oil and gas industry. So when you take in all this information all the time, I personally have found at least since like the lockdown portion of the pandemic, like I get really overwhelmed. And so I'm sort of like, what, how do you,

take in all this information and use it to like energize yourself versus going like, I'm just going to sit and watch Vanderpump rules, which is a place that I've landed recently. Cause it's hard. It's hard not to feel as though you're being screamed at to use a paper straw, but also we're all being poisoned with microplastics. So I feel like we're focusing on the wrong thing sometimes.

we're absolutely always being distracted quite deliberately to focus on the wrong thing, right? Because you have to think, there aren't that many villains. There's big oil, right? There's big pharma, and there's big meat, right?

And those three categories of industry in themselves are responsible for a lot of what is happening in our world today. And big media, let's throw that in there. It's only a handful of corporations, right? And even, for example, when it comes to let's just, you know, focus on plastic as an issue, five companies, five brands are responsible for 50% of the plastic out there.

Five. Those bosses, those CEOs have names and addresses, right? So I think what we need to do is we need people to get so...

Things are going to change. We always see revolutions happen. People get really fed up and then they act. There's always almost like a sort of match, right? And then all of a sudden things light up. The key thing is it's really bad to have a revolution without a plan in the background. That's when things go wrong. Everybody gets mad, they revolt, and then the system quietens down. What we need to do is kind of plan, plan policy, all that sort of stuff. So when we develop

this film, we developed an impact campaign alongside it, right? There's a lot of good people doing good work. So we're partnered with the top NGOs in the world. We've got WWF International. We've got Friends of the Earth. We've got Environmental Defense. We've got Plastic Pollution Coalition. The list goes on and on and on and on because we're like, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are

There are people working on ocean plastics. There are people working on, you know, microfiber plastics. There are people working to, you know, to sue people. You'll see in our film, there's one woman who sued a plastics manufacturing company for $50 million and won. Right? There's people who are doing, you know, fighting for different legislation. There's people doing citizen action. So I think the mistake is to be like, I can do all of it. I'm going to fight every, no, no, no, no, no.

Join one group, do one thing, always do one thing. Like, and with you guys too. And even with Jan, Jan doesn't have to do 8 million things. Jan's got horses, literally do the horses, right? I'll do the microplastics or what have you, but we need everybody to be involved in one thing. So I think that once, once we do too many things, everybody gets paralyzed. Nobody has time for that. That,

That feels reasonable and it feels as though it's a reasonable request to people. Also, because I think that so many people, you know, maybe their job isn't the most fulfilling thing in the world for them. Maybe they feel like their life is missing something. So if something bothers you enough and you open your eyes to it and then you can find some purpose in your own life by taking a bit of action, whatever that looks like for you in that specific department. It's also like a little bit of CBT where you build on success.

So it's like you have one piece of success and then you build and then you build. You don't sort of like start from the top and say, I'm going to overhaul the whole thing. It's like start little teeny tiny and then you just make these incremental steps. And on that note, what would be the things that if you're listening to us wondering about plastic, what kind of changes did you make in your life right away after you made this documentary? What things every day changed for you? Well,

Well, the first thing that I did and the thing that I regret not doing sooner, because I like to keep my stuff, right? I don't throw stuff out. I mean, that's probably why I'm in this documentary. I'm not one of those people who's really into fast fashion or any of that other sort of stuff.

So I have a pan that I've had for freaking a long time, right? But the pan was scratched up and I was like, ah, whatever. It's a bit scratched up. I can still use it, whatever. And then I started reading about how many billions of nanoplastics are coming out of scratched up Teflon, all that sort of stuff. Nasty, nasty, nasty. I'm getting rid of a pan. I have a pan that I need to get rid of right after we have this conversation.

No, I've been thinking about it. I look at it all the time. I'm like, oh, it's so great. I hate to waste this. But you know what? It needs to go to the dump. And it's as simple as that. You've got to throw that. That can go into recycling, right? The other thing, though, is my chopping board. So I had a plastic chopping board. Didn't want to throw that out. And then Sadat was like, every time you're using your knife on your plastic chopping board, you're literally like peppering all your food with microplastics.

I've got a plastic chopping board that I've used for years. I'm going to go shopping today. Same as me, right? So it's okay. I'm not saying let's throw out everything. No, but I mean, long-term, I mean, if I'm lucky, I have another 20 years on this planet. Fingers crossed. I'm 62. It would be great to be 100. Let's see. But it's the little things always that catch us. You know, the funny thing, and listening to you talk earlier about, you know, there's only so many villains on this planet, big villains, right?

like you mentioned. And these same people that are running these corporations are

equally as affected by these plastics as their companies are affecting millions and millions of people. Like they're, they're not exempt to what is happening environmentally and what's happening to body. So you'd think at the end of the day that watching a film like plastic people and realizing my, my daughter that's going to be having a baby has plastics in her, uh,

entire body. It was founded breast milk too, right? So it begins. Yeah. You know, I don't, I can't remember what the statistic is in Canada. I think it's one in three women get breast cancer, but I know in the UK, I think it's according to their breast cancer society, one in two. Now, certainly cancer has been around, but holy crack a toe, not at the numbers. And we're looking around and like, you know, that was one of the things in the film. I'm like,

I know I have a lot of people in my family who have had cancer. And I remember when I was growing up, it sure was a scary word because there weren't that many people. And cancer is highly, highly prevalent now. And a lot of these...

plastics are starting to be implicated because we know that it hijacks our endocrine system. So there's some, there's a lot of dangers and like a lot of people who've watched this film, you know, it is a bit of a horror movie. I've been calling it Barbie, the horror movie. Um,

But it wakes people up too. And it's certainly not too late for us to change. I'm honest to God, more hopeful about changing and solving the plastics crisis than I am the climate crisis, which I think is more multifaceted because you don't have a big...

as big of a left and right divide politically, it's not as polarizing. People on the left and people on the right don't like garbage. Yeah. They do not like garbage. You know what I mean? Nobody really likes it. But when you sleep in your own body, people care about their health. They do ultimately care. So I think what you're right, like the big villains haven't connected the dots yet, right? That what you put out into the world comes back into your body.

That was part of what I wrote in the reality bubble. As you know, there's just no divide. Everything that like the carbon that is out there coming out of a tailpipe is also the same carbon that ends up making up your fingernails. We know that our cells are turning over constantly, but they're not just made up of nothing. They're made up of the outside world, right?

So when we put all that toxic stuff out there into the world, it is what our physical bodies are remade of. When we remake ourselves, all that stuff is what is coming back into our system. So we're still a little early days. Most people haven't made that connection yet. But when they start to, I think things will change.

Well, I knew about the nonstick surfaces from the film that Mark Ruffalo starred in called Dark Waters about the Teflon kind of scandal, the DuPont like Teflon story. So I knew a little bit about that. That doesn't surprise me quite as much. The plastic chopping board. I don't know why I didn't think of that one sooner. I didn't think of it either. But because also I'm a mom, I encounter so many products that will heavily advertise that they're BPA free or, you know, chemical free or whatever, but it doesn't feel like they are.

So do you happen to know what kind of regulation is there, if any, behind like companies that make those claims? Because I just see the prevalence of these products everywhere on like Amazon, Timu, AliExpress, you name it. And I feel like it's the Wild West. Like I feel like if it's not a piece of wood or glass, we don't really effectively know what's in it.

I've just like taught myself to second guess that. You're absolutely right. And that's the second part of this invisibilization, right? Like I've compared it to Punch Buggy. Remember that game where you see like a VW that's red and then you'll see them everywhere? Now I see plastic everywhere because of course, most of our clothes are made of plastic. Carpets are made of plastic.

Children's toys are made of plastic. Your couch is made of plastic. The paint is made of plastic. Cigarette butts are made of plastic. Chewing gum is made of plastic. Mascara is made of plastic. So once you start looking, you're like, holy crackatoa. And the wonder, like the oil and gas industry is not going to be able, they know that their future is not going to be at the gas pump. So what are they putting it into? They're putting it into plastic, making it and making it still invisible.

So that's the irony, right? You go and you see these fitness people doing yoga, right? But their whole outfit is plastic on the plastic mat drinking out of a plastic bottle. And they're like, but I've got a hemp tote bag. It has felt crazy too because they sold a lot of those. There are these brands of, you know, period underwear now. And they tout that it's better for the environment because you're not using...

using disposable sanitary pads or tampons or whatever. And then people started talking about how tampons are bleached and then you're putting it inside your body. And then a brand of period underwear came out as being endocrine disruptors. It was high in a certain type of chemical. And it's the same thing that's in a lot of the workout clothing now too. And

Totally. I was like, who would have thought you wouldn't have thought that it just wearing it, it would absorb into your body, but then kind of also, of course he would. Cause your skin is a very large permeable organ. Exactly. So, so it's really that, but again, I want us to not feel paralyzed ever. There are things that we can do. I keep saying this, like it's buying quality.

Right. Buy things that have good quality. Spend just that little bit more for the quality thing that you will keep that will last. And I often think about my grandmother. I'm sure your grandmother's too. My grandmother just did not have very much plastic in her house. You know what I mean? Things were made out of glass. They were made out of ceramic. They were made out of iron pans. It's not like everybody was suffering at that time. They just didn't have it.

And as you'll see in the film, we literally had to be trained to throw things away. Well, now I'm thinking about teeth brushing three times a day with fucking plastic bristles and cramming them into the gums of your teeth. And if there was ever an entry point for a microplastic gang to team up and like, let's meet at the bicuspids.

7 a.m. But I also know that we're capable of change, which is exactly what you're touching on. Human beings are made for change. That's why we're still here. That's why we're going forward, that we haven't been completely annihilated. But you think about medieval...

anywhere when people were taking their bedpans and throwing them onto the streets where they walked and where they had vegetable carts set up two hours later for people to buy their goods. They eventually had to stop doing that because they're like, oh, we're getting sick. So eventually, the eventuality, like you said, of these microplastics invading our physical bodies is

is that we are going to see people getting more sick. Maybe there will be more cancers, more brain cancers, more birth defects, because the particle ratio in your bloodstream is just going to be too much for like, are we going to just morph into like completely different versions of humans? I mean, what's, what's down the road a thousand years, Zaya? Yeah.

Well, that's a big question, but we do know that every one of those microplastic particles is a poison pill, right? In order to make plastics, there's something like 16,000 chemicals in plastics, 4,200 of them. 16,000?

In plastic generally, but we know that 4,200 of them are classified as hazardous. So we know that a quarter of those chemicals that make up plastics are absolutely hazardous to our health. So if you've got something like that in your body, not only is it going to form as, let's say you've got a plastic particle that is stuck in your blood vessel, for example.

And this isn't something we included in our film only because we couldn't include everything. We're actually going to develop a podcast to actually talk about some of the things that we weren't able to include. But we interviewed a scientist named Mienka Vrieskoop. And she actually shows that when white blood cells come to attack the plastic particle...

They kind of like Pac-Man, you know, Pac-Man kind of gobbles up the ghosts. Normally, if your immune cells come and they, you know, try to take down bacteria, they gobble them up like a Pac-Man and, you know, take them away and, you know, you can clear up your system. In this instance, the immune cells were coming up to the microplastics and dying. Wow.

They would die and then their death signal would call in another immune cell, which would then come and also die. And then another immune cell would come and also die. And that's inflammation because that's when you're not able to, your own immune system's like, I can't fix this, what's going on?

And, you know, prolonged inflammation, that's when you end up dealing with situations that can lead to things like cancer. So, yeah, you've got the poison pill aspect and you've got the physical sort of aggravation of it. And we also know that bacteria do tend to leach more onto microplastics. So it

It's a problem. But again, the best thing about being able to be on your podcast and be able to speak freely about these things because we're not dealing with traditional advertising models is we can tell people what's really happening, right? This is not the kind of thing that, you know, you can really delve into too much, unfortunately, in traditional media. Yeah. Yeah.

No, we're very proud of that. I mean, there's nothing that we don't talk about on this podcast. This issue in particular, and the film Plastic People is what we're talking about today with Zaya Tong.

Where can we, where can we see this film? I know that you've had some premieres at various places. Like I said, unfortunately I haven't been able to see it yet, but where would, where would someone like me and Caitlin go to see plastic people? Well, it's going to be having its Toronto premiere next,

We're also very fortunate that we're going to get in some screenings at Hot Docs right before Hot Docs closes, which is so sad. But we'll be the last film that screens at Hot Docs on June 1st and June 11th. We're screening right now in Vancouver and starting all around the country in theaters. It's going to be part of the TIFF circuit, which is really great. It streams on TELUS. TELUS subscribers can get it as part of their package. We're also going to be screening at the Royal Cinema.

In a little while, the CBC's Nature of Things is going to put it on. So it'll be on mainstream, a mainstream broadcaster. Yeah, but that's going to be a little while from now. And I'm off to Europe for the European premiere coming up.

So, yeah, so just very exciting because, as you know, like I've been in the little screen. So to be on the big screen now is funny. What was the most surprising thing about this film, Zaya? Like what surprised you the most and like maybe a takeaway that did seem somewhat either perplexing or like...

absolutely bizarre. Like there must've been so many of those moments, but were you ever like completely gobsmacked by things you were uncovering?

I think one of the main things that I found really shocking, because in the film, what you see me doing is testing for microplastics that have come out of my body, right? A tiny poop sample is about a teaspoon. And the blood sample was only 2.5 milliliters. So 2.5 milliliters for anybody who cooks, you know, that's only like a few drops. That's tiny.

But in 2.5 milliliters, on average, the scientists were finding about 11 micro plastic particles. Okay. 11 micro plastic particles for a few drops of your blood. I have five liters of blood circulating in my system. So that made me go, well, Jesus, how much is actually in there then? You've got a picnic set floating around in your body. No kidding. It's called Plastic People for a reason, you know, because we are turning into plastic people.

people can anyone go get these tests now I'm like I want to go um well we're actually we're we're starting to look at at doing that yeah we're starting to look at that I can't announce too much about that yet but yeah we're starting to work on that um it won't be available widely to the public because you know we have to take up a lot of scientists and lab resources to do that and we're a film and we're not a lab but we're hoping to um I mean do you guys want to do that Jen do you want to get tested

absolutely do and I'm missing a set of car keys you know that might be somewhere in my body too some patio furniture that's like the 80s were rough yeah

Okay, but yeah, I can definitely see if I can get that sorted out and see if we can get you guys tested. That would be cool. And I also think it would help personalize it for people if they were like, ooh, I really should switch back to glass and some wood. Also, too, did we not have this correct then in the past? Like when you think about the milkman that would come and deliver your milk in glass bottles and then you take it back. Why did we leave this method behind? Not only was it adorable and whimsical, but also turns out it was much better for our health. I was just

was just in Rwanda and I had a Coca-Cola out of a glass bottle there. It's not the case, but you know, keep in mind, Coca-Cola is actually the number one plastic polluter on the planet. Like basically they are responsible for 11% of all plastic that is out there, but they did have glass before. So you're kind of like, why don't you guys go back to glass, which is infinitely recyclable, whereas plastic, you can only ultimately recycle it four or five times anyway. And

So we have the solutions. It's just a bunch of num-nums went out there and screwed it all up for us. So we have to fix it, you know? But...

It takes people getting together. So I really recommend people come to plasticpeopledoc.com. Check out our impact campaign. See how you can get involved. You can do it from the lightest thing of just sending an email letter that's already written for you to getting involved to people. You know, we actually feature a plastic-free community that's right here in Ontario, Bayfield, Ontario, where these folks got together and just got rid of plastic, like 90% plastic-free. So it's not...

not possible. It's infinitely possible. It's just information and action. And, you know, I think we need we need different hobbies. See, for me, for all for three of us here, we love having, you know, activist hobbies, because, you know, it's been said before, there's no, you know, the best way to get rid of any sense of frustration or anger is to channel it into action, right? And then you're like, Oh, my goodness, I'm part of that solution. So

So, you know, if you're tired of golf or pickleball or maybe you have an extra slot available, just join another group.

I was going to say the one thing that we do know about people and that I have learned definitely from the horse shit campaign, which has been on the go for the last, you know, 10 years, 20 years, actually, if you're counting the Canadian horse defense that started this up in 2006. But when people are aware of a situation, when there's awareness, and that was the biggest thing that we faced when we started down the road of letting people know that,

Giant horses were being put into boxes and being flown 8,000 kilometers to be eaten raw by very wealthy clients. And, uh, people are like, what, what? I mean, so the clandestine nature of nefarious things is always your biggest obstacle. You have to, we knew right out of the gate, we have to tell people, we have to be consistent and repetitive with our messaging and

Over and over and over. I cannot tell you how many thousands of tweets that I made with the same information because that cycle of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, you know, people need to see it repeat. That's why hit songs get made is because they're repeated over and over. A hit song doesn't play once.

And millions of people glom onto it. A hit song is absolutely crammed down our throats like microplastics. You're absolutely right. And politicians have known this for the longest time, right? George Bush would say the same thing. Sometimes people say it until it sounds true, like Donald Trump, right?

So, yeah, you're absolutely right. You do have to repeat it. And there's that's the part of it. Right. First, you need the courage to kind of reveal to people an ugly truth. And it's usually an ugly truth. And then you need to have the persistence to keep going, even when most people would give up, which is exactly what you've done with the horse shit campaign. And, you know, then you start accumulating a community.

And that's where things get more interesting is like communities come together and then it's not just you anymore. And that's when change starts to happen. And we do this because the whole history of the world is about these things happening.

over and over again, right? Courage, persistence, community action. It always happens. That's how we see change. And we've constantly seen change and positive change. I know sometimes it feels a little bit dark and we're in certainly one of those periods now, but that gives us the greatest opportunity for blooming, I think.

I think moms will really get behind this. I have to say as a mom myself, and there is no group of people you will galvanize faster than a group of moms going, I'm sorry, there are plastics in my baby. And, and they know that we know grassroots movements work like mothers against drunk driving did more to solve, you know, drunk driving than any government really ever did. They, they started that.

So I do, I feel like the more I learn about this, I already know that there has been an increasingly large movement in like the parenting community to avoid plastic stuff. Wood toys are back. Montessori learning is back. There's a lot more of that happening. But I really think this could piggyback strongly onto it because moms just don't, we just want to look after our kids. It's like, it's that simple. Yeah.

Moms are fierce. There is actually a Mothers Against Plastic Pollution. It's not called that, so it's not Matt. But they're on Instagram and they are fantastic. But I'll share one last little tip, if I may, which I was really happy to learn. And it's a really super, super, super simple one. And I love super simple solutions. Basically, if you want to reduce the amount of microplastics coming off of your clothes, which are largely synthetic, right? And one of the biggest sources of ocean microplastics is

all you've got to do is turn the dial on your washing machine from regular spin to gentle spin and that'll reduce the plastics by 70 percent 70 percent so it's huge that's huge amount of reduction and that's only by turning a knob maybe 25 a 25 degree angle to the left so there's things that we can do that are simple that's

crazy. That means literally today everyone, me, I'm doing this today. I am throwing out my scratched up pans. I'm switching to a wooden or bamboo or whatever product. Switching away from plastic cutting boards and I'm just going to switch to a lower spin cycle. I mean, that's very easy to do. I have gone

it on the highest spin cycle always because I'm like, I want the water out of there when I stick it in the dryer. Folks, all of these things will be included in our show notes. Certainly the website, any information on plastic people, you'll be able to find on the show notes.

The whole concept of what you're doing is, for me, showing the connection with all of us. We're not exempt. It doesn't matter if you're in Iceland or the tip of Finland or somewhere in Asia on a little Japanese island. We are...

all being affected by microplastics. There's no place on this world where people are like, there isn't any in their body. It's everywhere. Is it not? You're absolutely right. From the Mariana Trench to the highest mountains, they're finding it in the poop of penguins in Antarctica. It's everywhere. But the key thing, again, that I want to remind people and that we were quite clear to remind people in the film is it's not your fault. Right?

Right. It's not your fault. And we don't want people to feel like the onus is on them. You can do what you can do. But ultimately, we need to change the system. This is a system change thing. This is people getting together and calling out those corporations who are polluting. There are polluter pays laws in certain places. We've seen huge changes. You'll see some of that in some incredible countries that we feature like Rwanda and Manila.

who have made massive, massive strides. There's lots of different ways in which we can get mayors to start working with cities to reduce plastic pollution. Let the leaders and the corporate officials, they're really the ones that are quite responsible here. So do what you can to protect yourself as much as you can. Buy things that have quality. Don't buy

And unfortunately, Jan, I actually do have to say something that's going to be a bit of a bummer for the two of us, but I've been a big fan of vegan leather, quote unquote, for a long time. And vegan leather is plastic. And I think that's a big part of it.

And I'm tempted to run into my closet and show you my vegan leather jacket. Should I show you it? It's falling apart. It's absolutely flaking into plastic pieces. And in fact, last time a few of them got into my eye, which was a little bit frustrating. It's really, really, it's tricky, right?

I mean, there's apple leather. I will say there's apple leather. I've got apple leather boots. Yeah, I've got apple leather shoes too. But not all of that is within the price point for everybody. Cactus leather is coming along. There's mushroom leather, cactus leather. There's some actual plant-based footwear. I have a lot of canvas shoes. Of course, I have rubber soles. But we can't win them all. We can't win them all. So, I mean, do what you can and...

And really be happy with those things. You know, do one thing a week. Also, I really want people to pace things out and I don't want them to feel overwhelmed ever because I think that that's the biggest hindrance to action is when people just start to get scared. So don't be scared. We've got a good fight ahead. There's great communities. There's great collectives. Come join us at plasticpeople.com. Plasticpeople.com.

Yeah, let's start being human again. Let's stop being plastic people. Zaya Tong, as always, you are fierce, fabulous, informed. You are one of those people that's just out there making a difference in the world. We love having you on the show. And you guys are my kindred spirits. And I love being on here. And I love both of you. Thank you so much, right?

I hope you come back time and time and time again. And Plastic People is the film. It is Zaya Tong's directorial debut. She's been on the small screen for decades. We have seen her. She's a fabulous author. The Reality Bubble is another book. You can grab it on Amazon. I have...

three copies of that book now. I've bought them for people. I have one in my condo. I don't have a lot of books in my condo, but the reality bubble is one of them. And I've even seen my tour manager, Chris, flipping through and I'm like, oh, you're reading the reality bubble. He goes, this is wild. And I love it that you can just open it up. I pride myself on bathroom reading

And the reality bubble is my copy is in the back in my bathroom in the condo. And I have a copy here in the house, but I can open it up when I am having a plastic poo now when I'm when I'm getting when I'm getting rid of my plastic poo. Anyway, I'd be remiss if I didn't say Zaya Tongs. The reality bubble is really great. Zaya, thanks for being on the Jan Arden podcast today. And we love you. And thank you so much. Keep keep being a warrior for the world. We appreciate it more than you know.

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while putting a gut-friendly, guilt-free drink in your body. Cove Soda is available in 12 delicious flavors all over North America. So for our American friends, you can find it. They've got this fruity lineup that's fantastic. I drink those all the time. They've got the classic lineup if you like a

A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now.

That was our amazing special guest, Zaya Tong. She's a friend of our show and she's been on many, many times and I'm sure she will be on many, many times again. What did you think of all this, Caitlin? My God. I knew from researching and everything ahead of the conversation we had with her that I was going to be roundly shocked. And I did. It immediately called to mind the Mark Ruffalo film, which I encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to see Dark Waters. Okay.

And it's about the forever chemicals that exist in Teflon and the fight that this lawyer had to take on those companies. I knew it would be a continuation of my frustration with these larger models that convince the individual that we are responsible and that we're the bad agent in life.

you know, again, it's our plastic straws that are choking the turtles instead of actually just the oil and gas industry. So that's the type of stuff. I know it's been shifted. The responsibility has been shifted to us. This is not my issue. Like I'm just me over here. I'm not, you know, so it's like, I knew I, what I always love about Zai is that, you know, you come to it from a place of, oh my gosh, this is going to make me thrown into apathetic hell where I feel like it's bigger than me. But then you get a few little things you can do, um,

like throw out your pans, your chopping board, change your setting on your, you know, washing machine. 70% going into the, to, to the water stream, going into that water table. It is really nuts. Well, it's certainly food for thought and she really is a delight. And the fact that she's just out there traveling the world, you know, Zaya Tong, and I mean this with so much love in my heart and so much admiration, she is amazing.

such a, my version of Jane Goodall. She is someone who's taken on really big, scary issues on this planet. She travels the world tirelessly. Um, I was going to ask her how they got the funding to make plastic people, because I can imagine that would be an uphill slog to,

to secure the funds to do a piece like this that does go after the four or five big villains on the planet, right? Yeah, I would think that there would be a certain amount of arts funding that could possibly be included if you had a producer, obviously, who knew how to access that.

But also it sounded as though they had aligned a little bit with some environmental defense groups. So maybe there was something there, but yeah, it's not easy and she's gone out on her own and she will kind of call into question a lot of very powerful issues.

in the world. And that's not easy to do for just one person, especially just one person in Canada. She's always been a very enlightening person to speak with. And I remember first encountering her when I was on the radio. And she would come through as part of a promotional tour for The Daily Planet with Dan Riskin, who has also been on the show, who's fantastic. And I just thought this...

person is so fun to talk to about things that aren't necessarily fun to talk about but just fascinating and a very interested person she's very interested in things and in being helpful and is also very charming and charismatic as is Dan so and she walks the walk yeah and I remember

thinking like when I started working with you, Jan, right away, I was like, oh, Jan and Zaya are going to get along famously. And I'm happy that my hunch was correct. Oh, you've brought so many great guests on, you know, Zaya, Dan being one of them, everyone that you've brought, you know, just people that are putting themselves out there. They're walking, they're going out on that limb to, to,

teach us and to help us through their own experiences. All these people that we have on the show that are willing to teach us through their own experiences, be it good or bad. So anyway, Jan Arden podcast, you can subscribe to us. It'll help us pop into your stream, into your vibe every week. Your vibe will be part of our podcast. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you how your tour with your platonic life partner, Rick Mercer is going. Yeah, it's going really good. We played Calgary last night. So hometown crowd sold out Southern Jubilee Auditorium. I

I love it because I get a good parking spot. So it's always weird. I've been to so many shows there over the years and you're like, fuck, I got to walk eight goddamn miles. And so Chris is like, you're in stall three at the stage door. That part of it I love. What do you guys each have? I should have asked you this when he was on the show, but what are your riders? Like, what do you guys keep backstage? His is really simple. He's had four de-alcoholized beers. Okay.

Partake. Shout out to you, Partake. Love Partake. That was my pregnancy beer. Well, there you go, Partake. Feel free to sponsor our show, but there's your first free, you know, shout out. Okay. He has something so funny and it's part of his comedy world. It's part of a bunch of people going out and doing these comedy tours and

He has a sandwich that he wants at the end of the night, like a packaged sandwich that's cold cuts and cheese and like in a, in a submarine bun and it's wrapped up and waiting in the fridge. And across the country, there's been fucking the craziest versions of Rick's after show sandwich. It makes me laugh my ass off. I actually seek out,

to go look in the fridge to see what his after show sandwiches in Saskatoon. He had like, it looked like an English fucking tea. It was all these little sandwiches piled up on a plate with the crust cut off like funeral sandwiches, funeral sandwiches. And I was like, Ooh, I want to get in and eat those cucumber ones. Yeah. But, uh, he has that. We always sort of ordered dinner in, whether it's skip the dishes or Uber eats or Adam, Chris's right-hand man, he'll run out and grab, uh,

some stuff from wherever, but, um, yeah, it's really funny. The guys had sushi last night and it was at the venue like at six o'clock, but somebody brought us these amazing donuts and I cannot in the show notes, I will try and find the donut name, but it's a friend of Chris's and he's now got four or five donut stores and they're mostly vegan. Yeah. And they're the size of one of those pillows you stick around your neck to sleep on a plane.

We'll put it in the notes. But I have tea. I have like a vegan ramen noodle. I just have one of those sitting in my room. And you have no idea how many times I eat them. Oh, for sure. Like it's four o'clock. I'm in the venue. I pour some hot water in there because I have tea. I have Earl Grey decaf. And yeah, it's boring. We've got boring riders. That's it. That's the gist of it.

It's really the opposite of rock and roll. Like this is not the Guns N' Roses rider. It's non-alcoholic beer and some vegan food and tea. Caffeine-free tea. That's wild. I know. But it just goes to waste. I now have, when I don't eat the noodles at the venue...

I bring them with me. So guess how my suitcase starts filling up at some point, you know, you've done 10 shows, you've only eaten three of the noodles and you've got seven fucking containers of, you know, ramen noodles in your suitcase, which is kind of fun. Don't try this at home, folks. I was very hungry last week. It was 1130 at night. I got back to the hotel. I think we were in Regina.

And I tried putting hot water from the tap into my ramen noodle. It doesn't work. That's just a tip from me to you. Nothing happens. The noodles do not soften. It is the noodles. The noodles are on Viagra. They do not soften. They stay quite firm. Okay. And that's it.

All right. Well, this is Jan's hacks from the road. And I really appreciate it. I will not try to have tap water temperature room. Fuck, don't do it, Caitlin. Don't do it. Sounds so bad. Zaya Tong was our amazing guest today. Plastic People is her directorial debut. It's going to be available in many spots, but just check our show notes. Caitlin, thank you so much as always for

for swinging the bat this week. You're a delight and we will see you next week. Until then, folks, totally do. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.