Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home

This weeks’ post is about Garbage!The Revolution Starts at Home.  This movie was created by Andrew Nisker, who made movie because of his son.  He thought about pollution and how it affects his son, which then got him thinking that he needs to do something about this.  Nisker lived with pollution through his life, which is related to his asthma, one of the many issues related to pollution.  Here are a few factoids Nisker presented that encouraged him to make this film:

 - North America has 3000 landfills

 - North Americans dump 1,3 trillion gallons of raw sewage in our waterways every year

 - Approximately 1,2 billion cars find there way onto North American roads in the next decade

One of the Greenpeace founders (if I recall this was Irving Stowe) once said to Nisker that “the Revolution Starts at Home”, which is where the title comes from.  Niskers’ goal in making this film is to have a family keep their garbage for three months and connect this to the bigger picture.  The family is the MacDonald family.

Day 1

The first thing the MacDonald family needed to do was to find storage and prepare their garage for three months of storing their garbage.  A few factoids about waste:

1) Organic waste produced by the MacDonald family is sent to a composting center.  The employee at the center explained that there are lots of plastics within the composting sent to the center.  Because of this, they need to separate plastics from the organic waste with a machine that is not unlike a giant washing machine.  This machine separates the plastics from the rest of the compost by beating everything until the plastic bags pop open and then eventually plastics float to the top of the pile, making for easy separation.  Also, methane from the composting helps to power the machinery.

2) Canada has a problem finding where to put its trash, so trash is exported to the United States.  Because of this export, certain communities in the US cannot sell their land.  One example is the town of Huron, which is surrounded by landfills and has trucks passing through at a rate of one truck every five minutes (i.e. 130 trucks passing in each direction each day).

Day 31

The MacDonalds estimated that they produce about 40 lbs of wet garbage per week.  Mr. MacDonald went to a children’s birthday party with his son, noting that everything was disposable, all of which could easily have been reusable items.  Garbage seems to be primarily from packaging, such as meat Styrofoam packaging, cellophane, plastic, etc.  Some points about recycling:

 - There seem to be issues in terms of which types of plastics can be recycled, which is sometimes based on the recycling capacities of a community facility.  Some plastics are layered laminates , which means they can only be used once and be down-cycled, not recycled.

 - Glass that is recycled is crushed and turned into such things as road aggregate, in the worst case.

 - Newsprint can only be recycled a certain number of times, due to the fiber length decreasing over time.  Eventually it must be recycled into box- or paper-board.

A few more factoids:

 - Enough aluminum to rebuild the U.S. airfleet is recycled every month

 - 500 000 trees are cut down for weekly newspapers

 - In California, 3 million empty water bottles are thrown away every day

Day 50 (Santa Claus Parade)

After keeping track of their garbage, the MacDonalds are more aware of what they see at the parade and how wasteful people are being.  The MacDonalds made sure to bring the least garbage possible and carried their garbage back home with them, which was nothing more than orange peels and a water bottle.

Some notes about transportation:

 - Two SUVs contribute 15 tons of CO2 every year

 - 700 million cars on our roads are the leading cause of smog, global warming and asthma

 - Road runoff is the largest source of water pollution in North America, the most toxic untreated unsanitary sewage

 - Car parts break down, reaching your river, as does oil through leaks and even if not, in concentrated form

 - One gallon of oil destroys one million gallons of drinking water.  In fact, the North American yearly road runoff is equivalent to the amount of oil from two and a half Exxon oil spills

 - When cars are recycled, oil is taken and re-used, then the car get crushed.  Even after crushed, cars pollute; they get shredded, the metal then gets recycled, but the sea-foam ends up in the ocean

Some notes about water:

 - Washing dishes and clothes, as well as flushing toilets all pollute water.

 - The United Nations reports that 1,1 billion people are without fresh water, yet many Canadians find themselves with unlimited freshwater

 - In 2005, Toronto dumped 2,6 billion gallons of raw sewage into Lake Ontario

 - In 2006, US cities dumped 1,3 trillion gallons of raw sewage into waterways, which is equivalent to 99 days of sewage being continuously dumped over Niagara Falls

 - Many cleaning products contain phosphates, which cause flora in the water to over-flourish, which in turn reduces oxygen, starving the fish of oxygen.  Also, many of our soaps contain estrogen-mimicking oxalates, causing the little fish to be unable to reproduce.

 - Bleach goes into the environment, creating compounds that can increase mutations and cancer.  When they react with our bodies, they affect our immune, reproductive and endocrine systems, creating various disorders.

 - Indoor air quality in North America is ten to fifty times more toxic than outside air and this is directly related to our cleaning products.

Day 84

Over Christmas, we can see a significant increase in waste.  Many new products have more packaging than the product itself and most of this packaging material is not recyclable.  The high levels of waste around Christmas-time are not just in gifts but also in wrapping, cards, disposable food, etc.  The North American culture shows each other that we value each other by buying and throwing out things.  There is a fundamental disconnect with the way we show each other we care and the way we show our environment we care and ad-busters shows initiatives that encourage truly showing each other you care.  Rather than buying things for those you love, spend time with them and DONT BUY ANYTHING. 

Day 90

The final count: 83 bags of garbage and 320 pounds of wet garbage, for two adults, a seven year-old, a four year-old and an infant.

Updates noted in the credits:

 - Toronto stopped shipping its trash to Michigan in 2010

 - On March 13, 2007, Massey Energy was granted permission to build a second coal silo beside Marsh Fork Elementary School

 - If you are ready for change, visit the movie website to learn how you can start a revolution in your community

This weeks quote is by Jarod Kintz:

Sure, I’ll take your pamphlet. I need to fill up my trashcan anyway.