Plastic is in practically everything, from shoes to shampoo bottles. One man, filmmaker Ian Connacher, set out to answer the question: Do we have a healthy relationship with plastic, or is it an addiction?

Connacher held an open discussion with students and featured his award-winning documentary, “Addicted to Plastic,” as part of Live Green Earth Week at U. Illinois on Tuesday.

150 billion tons of plastic are produced in the U.S. each year, less than 5 percent of which gets recycled, he said.

“I’ve had scientists tell me that there’s enough plastic on this planet that we never need to make another piece,” Connacher said.

There are seven types of plastic, and not all are accepted at recycling facilities. The rest ends up in landfills, leaks into the ground and enters water systems, potentially causing health problems.

Plastic in the ocean is another major problem, he said.

Connacher said he traveled to the North Pacific Central Gyre, where the ocean’s atmospheric pressure creates a toilet bowl effect, causing an accumulation of trash. His team of scientists took a sample of the water and found a 10:1 ratio of plastic to plankton.

Nurdles, plastic pellets which make up 10 percent of ocean plastic, are often mistaken as fish eggs and consumed by marine life, he said. Through bioaccumulation, toxicity increases as it moves up the food chain, reaching humans.

However, Connacher said he found some promising developments on his journey, including a starch-based plastic alternative that releases no toxic substances and degrades upon contact with water.

The documentary is not meant to condemn plastic consumers or producers, he said, but to make us reconsider how plastic is used.

“There’s an infinite amount of good things about plastic,” he said. “So why not stick to plastics that are going to be around for a long time instead of disposable plastics.”

Nancy Holm, research coordinator at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, said she thinks our culture is dependant on disposable goods because they are convenient.

“People don’t think about environmental cost so much as the inherent cost of the product,” Holm said. “A plastic water bottle is pretty cheap, but in the long run, the energy used to produce it and recycle it, or it degrading in a landfill is a cost in itself.”

Making little changes, such as using an aluminum water bottle, can make a big difference, said Meghan Angley, member of Students for Environmental Concerns.

“We have to think about where everything ends up and the long ranging consequences,” she said.