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Projects



Lady Trash

YU Hyemin

  • South Korea
  • 78min
  • DCP
  • color

Environment&Nature Gender&Sexuality Lifestyle Social&Human Interest

Synopsis

A so-called 'waste geek¡¯, Geum-ja longs to fix waste pollution problems. She leaves the environmental organization where she has been working for more than 10 years. 
Although she is a veteran environmental activist with a brilliant career, featuring multiple great achievements such as highlighting the issue of harmful substances in sanitary pads and the legal banning of microplastics in cosmetic products, she struggles to remove plastic bag usage at the local market in her own neighborhood. 
Geum-ja's first attempt to reduce plastic bags in Mangwon market, the campaign ¡°Almeng¡± fails miserably. Mangwon market¡¯s merchants often treat her as a weirdo and wonder why she is doing such things when she works for neither the Ministry of Environment nor the local government office. 
Alzzas - her friends helping her with the campaign - cannot deal with her bulldozer-like personality.  

To refresh herself, she goes on a trip to Kenya and India, but even there she goes around garbage dumps and local markets all day long. She witnesses fruits piled up on fig leaves instead of plastic containers, a milk dispenser - Milk ATM - for people with their own bottles, and environmental activists from all over the world. Witnessing such alternatives with her own eyes motivates her tremendously. She returns to Mangwon-dong and starts new activities: promoting grocery bags instead of plastic bags, carrying travel mugs and private utensils, and opening a refill shop in a local market café. Can she make real changes to the market this time? 

Review

Geum-ja is a ¡®waste geek¡¯ who always thinks of ways to reduce trash and goes wherever needed if there is a waste problem. And I am a Geum-ja geek who follows her. The most troublesome kind of waste is non-biodegradable, plastic waste. Plastic usage is not only a problem for our neighborhood  in Mangwon-dong but also for all mankind. We all know plastic is the main culprit of environmental pollution. We also know that global warming is causing glaciers to melt. Nevertheless, the environmental movement is so slow. We are already too used to the convenience of plastics. I have seen other waste geeks claiming that only the essence (Al-meng-yi in Korean) needs to stay and the package has to go away. They are trying to make Mangwon Market a plastic-free market. What motivated and empowered them to act? Through this film, I would like to say these movements by scattered individuals will eventually create a bigger change to the huge plastic usage problem.  

Director

  • YU Hyemin

     

Credit

  • Producer½ÅÇýÀÎ SHIN Hyein
    ±è¹®°æ KIM Moonkyung