VideoActive Productions

List 1: Videos documenting municipal and hazardous waste incinerators and their alternatives. Also video on proposed geothermal project for Hawaii.•

Description

Illustrates the lack of screening of incoming refuse, the ash landill problem and economic problems. Includes an interview with Paul Connett describing the problems of incineration and the merits of the alternatives.

Interviews with local residents who discuss their concerns about the plant and details on some of the mechanical problems the incinerator had in the first year of operation including buckled grates, damaged furnace linings and corroded stacks. According to Brenda Reed, the fields adjacent to the Rome incineraor grow corn and beans. "In the fall they are trucked down to New Jersey where they are made into canned beans and mainly baby foods."

Description of some of the problems local residents have experienced during its 11-year operation, including odors, respiratory problems, soot on houses, cars, gardens, etc., traffic, noise and ash disposal. The only pollution control device is an ESP.

Includes a very candid tour with plant manager Ray White. Of particular note is the large quantity of unburned garbage emerging on the ash conveyor belt and the fact that the plant had operated for nearly two years without the air pollution controls connected -they used their "dump stacks." Interviews with local residents from a trailer park some 1500 feet away reveal their anger and concern about the plant and a list of respiratory problems which they attribute to the incinerator emissions.

Situated in the middle of cornfields. When state officials opened this facility in 1988 it was hailed as the model incinerator that would prove to all the "doubters" that they were wrong to oppose the plans. This incinerator has experienced nearly all the problems that activists had warned about. In this video we hear from local farmers, school children, residents and activists. Also, an interview with Craig Volland, an expert on mercury emissions from incinerators.

This video investigates several counties in Florida which are suffering the economic and environmental consequences of Florida's rush to build incinerators. Included are several interviews with residents who live near incinerators in Lake, Pinellas and Pasco counties. Greenpeace organizer Brian Hunt explains the mercury build-up in fish.

This incinerator operated for many years adjacent to an elementary school and within a few hundred feet of a senior citizens' housing project. Over the years many citizens complained to local and state officials about the smoke, odors, falling ash, and respiratory problems they suffered. It wasn't until local teachers, nurses and other residents organized and formed Citizens Against Pollution that the state finally closed the plant down. This state aciton was helped by revelations that soil on the school playground contained high levels of lead and that local cancer rates were much higher than in comparable suburban areas in Michigan.

• GERMANY: In June 1990, over one million people in the German state of Bavaria registered to support a referendum calling for "The Better Garbage Concept." Featuing interviews with doctors, activists, politicians, and citizens, this tape explains "The Better Garbage Concept" and how it would prevent incinerators from being built in Bavaria. In some areas in Germany, because dioxin has been found in high levels in mother's breast milk, doctors now recommend that mothers limit breast feeding to three months.

• HOLLAND: In July 1989, the Dutch government enacted a ban on the sale of all milk and meat from 16 farms downwind of the Rotterdam trash incinerator (which operated with only an ESP for pollution control) because of the high levels of dioxin and furan contamination found in milk from farms downwind of the incinerator. Paul Connett interviews two farmers who have been impacted by this ban. They explain that since the ban the government has bought all milk and meat produced from their farms. The fat of the milk is skimmed and destroyed in a hazardous waste incinerator.

• WALES: Interviews with residents who live near the ReChem hazardous waste incinerator in Pontypool.

This tape is for all those who have ever wondered how it is that despite a wealth of evidence that confirms the environmental and economic hazards of playing host to a commercial incinerator, certain politicians are able to maintain a glassy-eyed stare of indiffedrence. This video was obtained from a county commissioner by citizens in Northampton, North Carolina. It is a "training session" where PR oficials play the role of TV interviewers firing off the kind of embarassing questions citizens often ask those who claim that getting into the waste business will provide economic salvation for a depressed local economy. Paul Connett offers a commentary on what he feels is going on behind those closed doors.

Paul Connett puts the trash problems into the larger context of global pollution and our resource crisis. Connett summarizes the arguments against incinertion and illustrates the alternatives of source separation,reuse, recycling, composting, toxic removal, and landfilling of the screened residue. Included with this tape is a 48-page booklet written by Connett which expands many of the scientific and practical points illustrated in the video. Watch video online.

Franke destroys the illusion that the Germans are infatuated with incineration and describes the Institute's 400-page study which compared nine different methods of handling waste. The study concluded that a combination of mandatory source separation, composting and recycling would achieve the same volume reducation as incineration but is safer, cheaper and more socially acceptable.

Performed in front of a live audience of grassroot activists at a CCHW conference in Washington DC in October 1989. The video is a record of six sketches that poke fun at the way incinerators are all too often "slipped into town." Mark Lohbauer wrote and directed the performances and his role as Mr. Smug of the Very, Very Big Corporation is a classic. A great antidote to one of the industry's boring presentations on those wonderful "state-of-the-art, perfectly harmless, waste-to-energy resource destruction facilities, which we need to start building right now!"

This tape is a rough edit of footage shot in Hampton. It features the DeCom facility which began life as a trash incinerator burning waste from 3 counties but is now burning 100 tons-per-day of medical waste from many parts of the N.E. and midwest US. The testimonies from both former employees and local residents are hair-raising and give an indication of what could happen when such facilities are run with the profit motive dominating worker and environmental protection.

Depicts the environmental and health damage inflicted upon the citizens of Calvert City (population less than 3,000) and surrounding area, by a combination of nine chemical plants and a hazardous waste incinerator. The citizens of Calvert City, who have felt the impact of chemical mismanagement and ineffective regulation, have been expected to "prove" that their health was damaged.

This vido focuses on citizens who have been damaged physically and emotionally by past and present practices of incinerating hazardous waste.
• In Lenoir, Caldwell County, Connett interviews workers who suffer from permanent brain damage and severe health problems; a local doctor who believes their problems are directly linked to the incinerator operations;and residents who were affected by the plant's operations. The incinerator shut down in September 1989.
• In Rockhill, South Carolina, residents tell of the environmental and political problems associated with Thermalkem's hazardous waste incinerator.

Residents of Roebuck describe their experiences and concerns with the hazardous waste incinerator operated by GSX. They tell of black smoke, choking fumes, nauseating odors and of living with the constant fear that a major fire or explosion might occur at any time. They also explain their sense of injustice at being one of the dozen or so communities in the US who are the recipients of hazardous waste imported from all parts of the country. Citizens are outraged that their state authorities do so little to protect them.

In a massive loophole in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) many types of hazardous wastes can be incineratred in essentially unregulated facilities as long as the word "recycling" is used in the company's description of their operation. This video features two such facilities:
• Carolina Solite in Aquadale, North Carolina, which uses hazardous waste as its primary fuel in producing a "lightweight building material"; and
• Marine Shale Processors of Louisiana.
Interviews with citizens who live near these plants.

Biebesheim is an agricultural area in the state of Hessen.
• The first interview is with a technical expert from the P.R. department of the hazardous waste incinerator who describes the processes and the numerous pieces of equipment designed to keep harmful air emissions to a minimum.
• The second interview is with the Burgermeister from the nearby town of Reidstadt and members of his environmental advisory team who describe the many problems experienced by the plant and the local communities. There have been many fires in the loading bunker, accidents involving both trucks and trains delivering waste to the facility, reports of releases of black smoke, respiratory problems, and reports of high levels of dioxins and furans and other pollutants in the soil and air near the facility. Incredibly, Von Roll cited the Biebesheim incinerator as the model for the WTI hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio.

Cited above under municipal waste incineration, this video also contains information on hazardous waste incinerators:

• HOLLAND: In July 1989, the Dutch government enacted a ban on the sale of all milk and meat from 16 farms downwind of the Rotterdam trash incinerator (which operated with only an ESP for pollution control) because of the high levels of dioxin and furan contamination found in milk from farms downwind of the incinerator. Paul Connett interviews two farmers who have been impacted by this ban. They explain that since the ban the government has bought all milk and meat produced from their farms. The fat of the milk is skimmed and destroyed in a hazardous waste incinerator.

• WALES: Interviews with residents who live near the ReChem hazardous waste incinerator in Pontypool.

There are about a dozen commercial hazardous waste incinerators operating in the US. This video overviews seven of these incinerators, using video material obtained from a variety of sources. The focus is on citizens' reactions and the concerns of medical doctors.

Located in Halton Hills, a community of 40,000 just west of Toronto, Canada. Not only a place to recycle, this is a place for education, reuse and repair. Diane van de Valk and Rita Landry explain the four main functions of WasteWise.
1. The Education Center & Information Service provides business and individuals information related to reduction, composting, environmentally friendlier products, etc.
2. The Repair Center is where community volunteers repair bicycles, toasters, irons, appliances, etc., that would otherwise be discarded as trash.
3. The Reuse Center is a giant flea market where hundreds of previously owned objecs from games & books and kitchenware to sofas are sold at 25 to 50 cents per pound.
4. The Recycling Center accepts the superstars of recyclables as well as a remarkable range of textles, rubber, clothing, shoes, cork, etc. The goal is to teach people waste reduction, not recycling.
Opened in May 1991. This is the model that many other communities will want to copy. This tapes offeres a glimpse of the future.

A very exciting and innovative composting program in which the local authority encourages householders to get together and form their own small-scale community compost plots. To date there are 482 such plots run by groups ranging in size from 3 householders to as many as 200 apartment dwellers. The first part of the video features Thomas Waldmeir, the advisor to the de-centralized composting program. The second part is a vist to a large centralized composting facility which handles 200 tons-a-day of yard waste brought in by both public and private haulers.

Begins with the composting program at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, and presents a low-tech approach to composting animal manure, food and yard waste. The Seattle Tilth Association's Backyard Composting Demonstration Site is also featured. This segment shows the varied methods of composting.

A tour of the Resource Recovery Center in rural Fillmore County, including outdoor windrow composting. The finished compost is used primarily for road construction projects.

Illustrates source separation programs operating in several cities in Germany. Also a separation plant for mixed recyclables; a factory recycling mixed plastcs; an in-vessel composting plant; drop-off recycling containers; and toxic removal efforts.

Interviews with four successful recyclers:
• Joe Garbarino, a waste hauler from Marin County, CA.
• Peter Karter, an engineer from Connecticut
• Mark Lohbauer, a lawyer and council member from Pennsauken, NJ
• David Birbeck, a selectman from North Stonnington, CT.

Millie's energy and vision is behind this successful operation which utilizes the part-time and volunteer work of senior citizens and little technical equipment. Also included on this tape is a 5-minue piece produced by Dan Smith of WMTV in Madison, Wisconsin, on The Trashman from Rockford, Illinois.

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Charlie Valentine explains how this rural community of 850, confroned with a proposal to build a 1200 acre regional landfill in Jefferson County, built a recycling center next to their waste transfer station and reduced the amount of waste being sent to the landfill by 70% by volume.

Features Bret Norlund and the facility he designed, built ($400,000) and operates near Stevenson WA. Located in rural Skamania County (pop 10,000) this facility can handle the complete waste stream and has reduced the volume of materials going to the landfill by 65-70%. A 5-minute tape of The Trashman is included.

In this video, Joe Garbarino talks about past, present and future aspects of the garbage crisis and the separation facility and curbside collection programs he successfully operates. His ideas are for citizens, haulers, manufacturers and politicians. A 5-minute tape of The Trashman is included.

Geothermal is an alternative energy soure to fossil fuels and nuclear energy. The project proposed in Hawaii elicited a storm of protest as it was situated in a rainforest located on the side of Kilaea -the most active volcano in the world. Paul Connett interviews leading scientists, economists, energy experts, engineers, activists, native Hawaiians, musician Jerry Garcia, and Pulitizer prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin. The video focuses on the:
• threats to human health
• threats to the rainforest
• concerns of the native Hawaiians
• viability of the project
• problems of transmitting power over land and under sea from the Big Island to Honolulu
• economics of the project and the alternative methods of saving 500 megawatts of electrical power through efficiency and conservation measures.