Plastic Oceans Festival: Free Open Air Film Screenings and Paddleboarding

18th July at Merchant Square
Throughout the day there will be free open-air screenings on their big screen of documentary films focusing on ocean conservation including 'A Plastic Ocean' running from 6pm-7:30pm followed by a Q&A session with some of the team behind the film. Learn about the story of plastic pollution by getting hands-on in one of our Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP) waterway clean-up sessions.


The Plastic Oceans Festival

Plastic pollution in the oceans is a growing, global problem but it can also be found right here at home in London in our own waterways.

The Plastic Ocean Festival aims to promote public awareness and understand of the damaging effects of plastic pollution in our waterways and oceans, encouraging individual and group action to refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle plastic, starting at home in London.

It showcases a series of free public events from April to September 2017 in London incorporating stand up paddleboarding and waterway clean-ups with screenings of documentary films and discussions from scientists.

It has been organised by the London based watersports group, Active 360, the NGO’s Watertrek and the Plastic Ocean’s Foundation (UK), as well as scientists at Brunel University London.

Our approach

Stand up paddleboarding allows participants to try something new under the supervision of qualified instructors and to have fun on the water. It is also an opportunity for them to see the impacts of plastic litter and its presence in our waterways for themselves.

“Paddle and pick”, gives our paddlerboarders the chance to contribute to the cleaning up of our waterways. They can also be involved in some citizen science by helping us categorise all the litter we collect to determine what the top offenders are.

At our last two events were recovered 760 and 580 pieces of litter, mostly plastic from the Paddington arm of the canal. Plastic food packaging was the most prevalent but we also found some more curious items, such as an inflatable horse!

Award winning documentary film screenings provide an overview and further examples of the plastic pollution problem in our oceans to provide audiences with a more in depth understanding of the issue. We use these as a platform to generate discussions with scientists working in this research area, which provides opportunities for the public to ask their questions and voice their opinions on this important global issue.

Our films

North of the Sun (45 mins)
A story about following the dream. Two Norwegians spent the cold winter on an isolated, uninhabited bay of an Arctic island facing nothing but the vast Atlantic Ocean and living in a cabin that they built from driftwood and the marine litter washed up there. They brought with them to items of the utmost importance: their surfboards. Because the remote bay holds a well-kept secret: some of the world’s finest surfing waves.

Sky News’s A Plastic Whale (46 mins)
The report, part of Sky News’s Ocean Rescue initiative, follows the story of a Cuvier’s beaked whale that stranded near Bergen, Norway, which was found to contain 30 large pieces of plastic inside its stomach. The report investigates the problem of marine plastics and the threat it poses to these iconic animals, how communities have responded to their Plastic Whale and whether this sad case can help us find a solution.


Headliner: A Plastic Ocean (99 mins)
It has been described by Sir David Attenborough as "one of the most important films of our time". A Plastic Ocean is a global adventure following a filmmaker and world record free-diver as they travel the Earth discovering the shocking impact that our unsustainable consumption of plastic is having on our oceans and wildlife. Their journey leads them through waste dumps, deep seas and remote islands to make unusual discoveries, reveal shocking truths and discussing impor