on the other side of the spectrum too overwhelmed and yeah is this even going to make a difference yeah what would you guys say to that

i think a lot of young people do feel that way thinking like you know i'm not in a position of power i'm not old enough i'm not rich enough knowledgeable enough whatever it is and you know some of us can vote some of us can't you know like there's a real shared sort of mindset that a lot of us have in Australia where we sort of have given up and we just think well what's the point you know I can't again like change the world but I've just seen time and time again and I think that's where my journey I've been super fortunate to be able to go to United Nations conferences and meet incredible young people all across the world and just realise that yeah, the sort of big glossy, as Cooper said, like that end goal that some people might think is the only way to make impact is, oh, the only way I can make a change is if I'm the PM or if I've got millions of followers or whatever it is.

But that circle of influence that you have and that ripple that you can create through your own community truly, truly is what has changed the world in so many other fields and definitely has already started changing the world in the environment space.

And I've met, yeah, incredible young people that aren't yeah you know doing you know crazy global things they're just driving change in their own community and that's ultimately what everyone can do and there's so many different stories of young people in Australia that have taken that upon themselves to sort of not I guess like the mindset we have is hope lies in action so if you are feeling overwhelmed it's like well what can you do to take action because hope is action so what are those small steps and I think that circle of influence like whether it's your sporting clubs, whether your friends and family, your school, your workplace, all these different touch points that you have.

Like that's the best way to drive change.

And if you look at that as your roadmap, there will be so many different easy switches you can do.

And then you just keep building and building and building.

So yeah, the second A is awareness.

Mm-hmm.

So the biggest thing that I've have done, particularly after getting the results, is looking at where is the plastic that I use that's actually getting heated? So, for example, plastic containers like Tupperware.

If you put sort of hot foods in there, or if you put it in the microwave or the dishwasher, that's what really gets the chemicals out and onto our food.

So yeah, chucked out all of my plastic containers, plastic chopping board.

Really looked at also recycled plastic as well.

Like, if you're drinking out of a bottle or something that it says 100% recycled plastic, yes, it's good it's not in landfill, but the process of actually making that recycled bottle is way worse for human health because they're adding all these extra chemicals and shredding it down, and you can only do it a few times before you-

13%?

Yeah.

... of the country, you talked about being in Arnhem Land before, but they're also copping a lot of this pollution, even if they're not generating it.

Yeah.

Like, it is such a global problem, but it's also...

Part of the film is really exploring because when we're filming, we're keeping our fingers crossed that there was gonna be this global plastics treaty, sort of similar to what they did with nuclear weapons back in the day, where every country's like, "Yep, we're gonna start to phase things out." Unfortunately, because of the lobbyists and sort of powers that be, particularly Mr.

Trump, yeah, the global plastics treaty's broken down, and so we're sort of left in a bit of a limbo in terms of, like, what can we actually do? But I guess in Australia we are such an influential nation, so if we can really solve this problem here, create the innovations, create the solutions, create the policy, we then can, you know, copy and paste that to all these other countries, help our neighbors, which are some of the highest polluting, yeah, nations in the world.

Mm.

And I don't understand where it's become a bit of a disconnect where we think, "Oh, I'm not gonna reach out to my state MP, who's too busy or important," or, "I'm not gonna reach out to my federal MP." Like, their job is to represent the people that they look after.

So if they're not hearing from us, like, no wonder we're not sort of getting the reforms or the, you know, the things that we can do for policy in terms of plastics, because I don't think enough of us are actually reaching out to our, yeah, local representatives and saying, "Hey, I'm pretty passionate about this." I don't have the answers.