The Clean Bin Project - Part II

I am very pleased to say that I attended a screening this evening of The Clean Bin Project, a subject of a previous blog entry a couple days ago.  I must say, it was fantastic.  The Clean Bin Project is a movie based on a year long competition between two Vancouverites to see which of them could generate the least landfill-destined waste over the course of a year.  They are not hippies, or anarchists or communists or anything at all out of the norm. They are just average people that wanted to try and see how little garbage they could generate.  And they made a very good movie about it.

I had watched the trailer on the website and the movie was very much like a feature length version of that preview.  The only difference was that the movie actually contained a significant amount of interview and commentary from outside sources that really supplemented the subject matter.  The photographer that photographed the Albatrosses on Midway Island that I mentioned in the landfill post provided an interview, as did the Mayor of Port Coquitlam and a resident of North Vancouver that lives in a zero-waste building.  The interviews definitely contributed to the movie, not that it was lacking without them, but they provided a more convenient vehicle to package the heavier statistics and more somber messages.  The parts of the movie documenting Jen and Grant's year were actually really funny.  The movie was well-edited and put together, more focused on what we all really can do than guilting us into feeling like there is more that we should be doing.

I definitely suggest that you all go out and see this movie.  As a matter of fact, I suggest you grab ten of your closest family members and friends and you all take an evening, either now at a screening, or maybe later when it officially opens (if you would like to check and see if there is a screening coming to where you live, click here) and go see it together.  And then discuss it.  See if your circle of friends and family might be interested in making just a couple changes that have a significant impact.  The movie itself is full of ideas of things you really can do that will make a difference.  If you're lucky enough to be somewhere that is having a screening, you should go just to see their bins (yes, they bring them with them).  I tried to convince them that they should give it to a museum or something if the movie really takes off, because then it isn't really garbage anymore.