Garbage! documentary

Last week my neighbour/yoga instructor extraordinaire lent me the local documentary film “Garbage! The Revolution Starts At Home” and I had a chance to watch it tonight. I had been sent a link by a friend a while ago and I wasn’t sure that I was that interested from the trailer, but the film actually goes into a lot of depth about not just garbage, but sewage/water usage, power, household chemicals and other things so I actually highly recommend it.

My neighbour (who lent me the film), however, works for the City of Toronto in Waste Management and has a few corrections to make if you do see the film. I can remember two of them and if there are more I’ll post them tomorrow or the next day:

• You do NOT have to pull out the plastic spout from milk/juice cartons in order for them to be recycled.
• Wrapping paper IS recyclable, it’s the shiny plastic stuff that isn’t.

I liked this film because it was down to earth, it explored more than just garbage and dug a little (not too much, but a little) deeper than I had expected, it included all types of garbage and pollution (sewage, coal mining for our power, our indoor pollution thanks to cleaning products, transportation), and it’s always nice to see something local and directly relevant to one’s own life (the filmmaker is from Toronto and the film is based on a family in Toronto).

It might have been useful to the viewer to have an expert sit down with the family at the end of the 3 months and go through how they could actually lessen their consumption in practical ways (nothing too drastic, but they could definitely use some advice), because I kind of felt like after the filming was over they went on consuming just as much as they did before. And all of those nasty chemical cleaners… Yikes.

The website has an action list which is pretty good, but no help to the Green Me Up challenge as I’m already doing them all (except #6 – plant a tree, but I have a tree out front and a tree out back and that’s about all our little yard can take!).

Anyway, if you have a chance go to a viewing, or see it however you can. Maybe I’ll host a viewing, but my little living room won’t take more than a few guests comfortably, so I’ll have to find a venue!