Plastic production is rising even as fossil fuel use for energy declines, and this film argues the two facts are connected. Environmental lawyer Steven Feit lays out the case that plastics have become the petroleum industry's growth strategy for the century ahead. Oceanographer Sarah Jeanne Royer surveys microplastic damage along the coasts of Hawaii, while retired teacher Sharon Lavigne describes her fight against pollution in her Louisiana community, home to some of the largest plastic plants in the US. A Kenyan photojournalist documents the fallout from single-use plastics in his own country, and the film sits in on industry lobbyists making the case that new recycling technologies will fix what current ones haven't. A Hamburg-based chemist and inventor offers a competing proposal for solving the problem at its source. Moving between activists, scientists, and the industry defending itself, the film asks whether plastics makers can be trusted to manage what happens after their products are thrown away.