Way to go White Collar!!!!

Need I say more?

Eco-Green Production Assistants - a story

Dedicating a person to environmental practices on set is a new concept and an exciting green job. However, there are kinks to work out and not without inherent problems. Read Crystal's experience on a commercial that shot last week.

Bottom line:
1)The Eco team needs to be empowered
2) there needs to be two on a job and not pulled away and paid more than the usual PA rate
3) crews and caterers need to be part of the solution
4) reading signs should not be considered work



Crystal's story and conclusions after a 4 day commercial shoot.

The logistics of what happened:

I was the sole green PA for a commercial for [removed] commercial that shot over four days. My trash bins came from a rental truck called Kitstrucks. They only had 8 bins and I needed a minimum of 10 for two refuse stations (5 per station).

The refuse stations consisted of five sorted categories including paper, metal, plastic, compost and landfill. Paper consisted of CLEAN paper so soiled paper plates were considered landfill. Metal involved cans, food pans and aluminum foil. Plastic at first included numbers 1-7, but then were changed to 1 and 2 only due to recycling rules according to the person who was picking up the refuse. Compost at first consisted of all food materials and compostable materials such as utensils and bowls, but was later changed to non-greasy food only, no meat and no cheese.

I was also in charge of the water stations. The idea was that we would have a few plastic bottles in the beginning so that people could write their names on them and reuse them or bring their own water bottles.


The attitude of the cast and crew:

When I put out the bins the first morning a lot of people, cast and crew alike, were excited to see that the production was trying to go green. By the second and third days the majority of people who seemed excited about the concept were the new talent who hadn’t seen it before. A lot of people stood by the bins and read what contents should go where. Sometimes I was able to stand beside the stations and monitor what was being thrown in. When something was thrown in the wrong receptacle and I corrected them many people dug it back out and put it in the right one, but some just shrugged their shoulders and walked off.

Most of the other PA’s were extremely helpful. This was very fortunate because I really felt like I needed to be in multiple places at once. The other PA’s were also more than willing to let me put my bins in their truck, as long as there were no bags of garbage. This posed a problem when I had more garbage than could fit in the bins.

Problems encountered:

Although the operator of the kitstruck was extremely helpful to me and my job, sometimes other departments would take a trash bin or two and I wouldn’t know where it went, so I would have to combine the contents of bins, which meant I had to resort more later.

The first shoot day after the first company move, all the refuse was left at the first location with the intention that it was going to be picked up later. Later I was told to go with another PA in a van to pick it up and halfway there we got a call instructing us not to pick up the trash because it was the directors van and he didn’t want it to smell. So all the refuse that was sorted that morning was left on the sidewalk.

After the catered lunch on the first shoot day the caterers dumped all their leftover food in one huge black plastic bag (I used clear compostable bags for the compost) and left it leaking on the sidewalk in front of set, then left.

The second shoot day we were at a college and one of the employees of the college came around and picked up all the refuse. He told the production manager that the college did not compost, but when he came by to pick it all up, he told me they did. So the college collected all the refuse of that day and there is no certainty as to what ultimately happened to the sorted bags.

Also on the second day my bins were put into a truck and moved to the next location while I went in a van during the company move. Trucks were parked at two different locations and everyone went to lunch as soon as they moved locations. I had no idea where my bins were, so I missed lunch and didn’t have time to set up before people threw all their trash into the same bin that was already available at the college.

On the third day I was sent to get ice with another PA right before lunch. We had a hard time finding a place and then the directions we were given by another store were wrong. When we finally did find a place, there was no ice. To make a long story short it took a lot longer to find ice than it should have. By the time I got back to set lunch had already been served and many people were finished eating and looking for the refuse station. I didn’t know where my bins were because there was a company move right before lunch and other PA’s moved my bins for me. I missed lunch the day before, so grabbed what I could for later and then began setting up bins, at which point people had thrown all their garbage into one big bin that didn’t even have a liner.

On the last shoot day the caterers set up for breakfast and put out their trash bin, but when I set up my trash bins they took theirs back. Because I was 2 bins short of having two complete sets for refuse centers I had been relying on caterers trash bins for landfill, so this made it difficult to have complete centers.

Although I had two stations set up, each truck had it’s own trash bag off the back that was put out by that department. There were times when I went from truck to truck going through the individual trash bags, but I often didn’t have time for this and at the end of the day it all went into landfill.

Once wrap was called trash appeared out of nowhere, from individual department trucks and from the cleanup of the set. Even if the sorting of trash was kept up with throughout the day (which was very difficult as one person) it would have been impossible to sort through the extra trash at the end of the day unless I stayed hours after wrap.

Because most of the waste accumulated came from food, it was really hard to keep up with craft services and the catering companies, neither of which were green while trying to stay on top of the refuse station on set. The production supplied the caterers with compostable utensils and cups, but not plates or bowls. This was extremely confusing to people, because the compostable utensils looked like plastic, but went in the compost, the cups looked like paper but went in compost, the bowls from craft service looked like plastics, but because they didn’t have a number on the bottom they went into landfill, the napkins looked like paper, but because they were bleached went into landfill and the paper plates provided by catering looked like paper, but because the top one or two (out of a stack of about 7 plates) were soiled the dirty ones had to be separated into landfill, while the clean ones could go in paper.

People didn’t write their names on the plastic water bottles and very few brought their own. So instead of using tons of plastic bottles, tons of paper cups were used. I asked people to put their names on their bottles and walked around with a sharpie offering to do it for them, but only two people agreed. One PA who was on the Target job thought that part of the problem was we weren’t providing reusable water bottles, like they did for Target. But like the production manager pointed out, “If we keep providing people with water bottles on each job they’re just going to keep getting new water bottle after new water bottle.” And people will probably still forget to bring them.


Other waste I observed:

On the first day of shooting we didn’t wrap until 8 or so. At the very end of the day the production ordered about a dozen pizzas as well as a huge salad and at least half a dozen sandwiches. Some of the food was eaten, but most people chose to go home rather than stay to eat. Even after offering the neighbors free, whole pizzas, we ended up trashing at least 8 whole or partially whole pizzas, most of the salad and many of the sandwiches.

In the effort to be green the production supplied water through 5 gallon water jugs. The empty jugs were kept and sent back to the company to be refilled, which is good. But once you open one there’s not way close it again or make it spill proof. So every time there was a company move we dumped out whatever water was left, sometimes full jugs at a time. All in all I dumped out about 20 gallons of fresh drinking water. Also, when the jugs got below a certain level, the pumps no longer could pump out the water, so that was wasted as well. This could have been remedied by having a large water cooler where the excess water could be emptied.

Shooting in the middle of August was very hot and muggy. Most teamsters/drivers kept their trucks idling throughout the day in order to have the AC on. Although the engines were running the AC wasn’t very cool while in park, so some drivers revved their engines in order to make the AC colder.

Also, I didn’t know any of the locations ahead of time. This was difficult because on some of the shoots there was room to set up a complete station on set and others there wasn’t.


Suggestions for the future:

-Green PA should be introduced at the beginning of the shoot, so that everyone knows it’s a green production and what the green PA is doing.
-Depending on the size of the production, there should be at least two green PA’s.
-Green caterers.
-ALL disposable eatery should be compostable including utensils, cups, plates, bowls and napkins.
-It would be a lot easier in terms of weight and space if the trash bins were half size and there were many, say 15 or 20 bins. This way more stations could be set up around the location, but would take less space because they’re smaller.
-The EPA should be in charge of the disposal of the refuse. This is one less thing the production manager would have to do and saves confusion on the part of the Green PA because they would know exactly what to do with the waste at the end of the day.
-Maybe the green PA position shouldn’t even be a PA, but rather a separate job title. Many people argued with me about what should go where even after I told them the correct bin and why. They didn’t know what they were talking about and ended up throwing their garbage wherever they deemed necessary and so I fished it out after they left. I wonder if it was hard for them to take direction from me because I was a PA.
-the Green PAs should be able to travel with their bins so they can access them quickly.
-some sort of tag teaming with catering/craft services would be ideal, since that’s where most of the trash comes from

Extreme Optimism:

For the greening of a set to work it must come from the top down. Each department head should be involved and get their workers to be actively involved as well. If the director or department heads don’t care about being ‘green’ it’s really hard to get the rest of the cast and crew to feel the same way.

Respect for the position of the Green PA. Garbage is dirty and no one wants anything to do with it. So naturally, the green PA position is not a highly desirable job. I actually had PA’s tell me that after seeing me work that they would turn down a green PA position if they were offered it in the future.


Incentives to be a green PA/EPA:

-MONEY! This is one PA position that doesn’t give opportunity to move up. PA’s put in their time as PA’s in hopes of moving up.
-ideal sense of values and a dedication to the environment




Ideally:

-have ALL own equipment as well as own truck
-two people MINIMUM
-someone in the green business be involved in the pre-planning, so that the green PA’s know what’s going on
-hire green caterers




Final Thoughts:

Because this is a brand new position and a brand new thing to the New York film industry I think it will take some time before people get used to the idea. In the beginning any change feels like a lot of work, but once it becomes familiar I think it could catch on. I see the ‘greening’ of the film industry going one of two ways: either the concept is taken seriously and people really try to make a real change or it becomes a fad in which people/companies only want to be associated with the term, but not the lifestyle. Some of the suggestions in this report are ambitious, but nothing will change unless people’s mindsets change.

The Practical Guide to a Greener Production. Yours. Free.

As many of you know the Workshops in July were to launch the recently published "The Practical Guide to a Greener Production" as well as introduce the industry to many of the players in the "green scene" that are working hard to make our industry (or just industry in general) have less of an environmental impact.

It was very successful, the speakers were amazing and inspiring and we intend to make this a yearly event.

If you were unable to make it, no worries! You can get you hands on a FREE copy just by asking for one, coming by or picking one up at the Mayor's Office of Film and Television.

Law and Order requested one for each department head as have other feature productions and many commercials. Each prop rental and purchase gets a few thrown in the order as well.

Only 500 were printed and about 100 are left here not doing anyone any good. So, call 718-392-3304 or come by the LIC location 43-26 12th street 2nd floor.

This is only the first and humble edition, destined to get better and better every year. Some sections better than others. As I recently read and firmly believe," ALL OF US ARE SMARTER THAN ONE OF US". So, please, send in your ideas, vendors and strategies to pggp@filmbizrecycling.org if you have something to add.

Below read some feedback from the workshops and be sure and attend next year!

Workshop Feedback

I wanted to thank you for hosting such a wonderful workshop with such an incredible panel. It was hugely educational and immensely inspiring.

Heidi
Producer

Hey Yall, I just went to the Film Biz Recycling Workshop on Greening Productions and I was very impressed with the panel of speakers (including our very own Eva Radke. Go Eva!). It was very informative and most of all it put a face to the hardworking, dedicated people striving to green the film industry. It is certainly not limited to artcubers. Tell all of your production friends from producers to grips to camera to caterers, there is something for everyone. I really can't recommend it enough. There is another workshop this Thursday so if your free it is worth going.

Anu
Production Designer

I was there and I can concur to the event. Very, very informative.
Please go if you have a chance and bring a film friend!!

Lou
Lead Man

I'd like to second that emotion. It was a great workshop - I think anyone could gain from it. I'm sure the little resource book will come in very handy. Who doesn't want more (and better) resources for the things they need all the time? Many will actually SAVE YOU MONEY. Go to Thursday's workshop!

Luisa
Art PA


I just wanted to send a note to say how great I thought the seminar was... I especially thought Lauren's work was really inspiring – she can't be more than a few years older than me, and has done so much. It really made me want to do more. I'm considering volunteering for Rock & Wrap It Up, it seems likely that they'd do stuff on weekends.

Anyway I just wanted to say thanks, and that the guide and the seminar wereboth wonderful, and we're all really proud that NYC has FBR!

Catherine
Prop House Staffer

Congrats on the workshop last Thursday! I thought it was really well done and enjoyed the panel. I grabbed a couple of extra guides and my boy, Paul, and I have been discussing who will make the best use of them, among our friends. I gave one to a freelance production mgmt team here at Original Media - an LP/PM/PC team I know pretty well. Also gave one to my roommate, who works in production at an ad agency, JWT. And Paul's gonna give the third to the guys over at TV Boy, a production company that is located in LIC, they are good guys and I want them to know about you and visa versa.

Alana
Art Department Assistant



… and didn't get to thank you for collecting a great panel of speakers for the Green Biz event! What a great, positive group of green leaders! I wish audience attendance had been better!

There are amazing things happening all over, and I'm seeing the rewards of green collaboration. Your message about being more aggressive about communication, connecting, and networking with other green types is so true...

Susan Benarcik
Artist

Death by Chocolate

By Crystal Landes

You’ve been at work for 12 hours now. They’ve just shot that scene, again. You’re tired and you’re hungry. So you head to the craftee table. You see fruits and veggies, but what you really want is something sugary. Chocolate!

Chocolate is an exotic treat, that we, as Westerners have the privilege of indulging in and indulge we do by consuming 3 ½ billion tons every year. That’s a lot of chocolate, which means we have a huge responsibility to use our spending power and change the way the business is run. There are three main issues that come with every Snickers, Twix or bag of M&M’s you eat. First the packaging is not made out of recyclable materials, secondly the cocoa is not fair trade and third it’s not shade grown.

400 million M&M’s are made daily. None of the wrappers for any sweets made by the Mars Inc. company, including M&M’s, Snickers, Mars Bars, Skittles, Milky Way or Twix are made out of recyclable material, except for M&M’s Minis, which come in a little plastic tube. If 400 million M&M’s are made daily then we can assume that roughly the same number is made of the other Mars sweets. That comes to approximately 8 billion non-recyclable wrappers on a daily basis! How many of these sweet confections do you see on your craft services table or in your office snack hub?

By now we’ve all heard the term fair trade and shade grown, but why is it so important? Fair trade ensures that the farmers get just that, a fair market value for their product. For every US dollar spent on chocolate, huge companies who deal in non-fair trade get 70 cents, while the farmer only gets 5cents. Shade grown again means what it sounds like, that the cocoa is grown in the shade. This is important because cocoa is happiest growing in the shade provided by other trees canopy, but more importantly because non-shade grown cocoa is contributing to the massive amounts of deforestation that takes place every day. This was made possible in the 1970’s during the “Green Revolution” when they genetically modified cocoa plants to make them able to grown in full sun.
Now I have to admit here, I feel Mars, Inc. is in a similar position as McDonald’s was when Supersize Me came out. While other peer companies are acting in similar ways these two companies seem to get the brunt of the blame. So let’s get this straight, alongside Mars, Inc., these large companies are not using fair trade cocoa: Hershey, Nestle, Russell Stover or Dove. Hershey’s and M&M’s/Mars control 2/3’s of $13 billion US chocolate market.
Because America is the world’s largest chocolate consumer (in 2002 we spent $13.1 billion on the 3.4 billion pounds we consumed) we are in a position to change the way the chocolate industry is run. How? First of all, every dollar you spend is like a vote. You are CHOOSING to buy a product and thus supporting the company, and their values, that make it. We can choose to buy organic, shade-grown, fair trade chocolate. Some national companies who use fair trade, shade grown, organic cocoa are Dagoba, Endangered Species Organic Chocolate, Green & Black’s and many more. But even better are the local artisan chocolate shops such as Jacques Torres Chocolate located in Brooklyn and Manhattan and Travel Chocolate, which is sold at Grand Café and Village Farm and Grocery, both located in Manhattan. Secondly, we can look for wrappers that are made from recycled materials. In addition, we can urge the large companies to use recyclable packaging by calling their toll free numbers, some of which are listed below. Over 70% of the worlds chocolate comes from Africa. While that may seem like worlds away, we can start to make a difference here in the US by making changes in our daily spending habits, personally for ourselves and professionally in our offices.

Hershey 800-468-1714
M&M/Mars Inc. 800-627-7852
Nestle 800-851-0512
Russell Stover 800-777-4028
Dove 800-551-0704

A 12 ton week!

The week of March 30th 2009 was a big week for Film Biz Recycling, charities and the environment. Instead of filling dumpsters, the New York City film industry is choosing to address environmental and social bottom lines by donating all goods to Film Biz Recycling. We, in turn, donate 90% of the donations to local charities.

The reuse center is coming right along!



Here's how the week went down:

We received donations from:

Life on Mars ( TV show)
Away We Go (feature)
Jack Goes Boating (feature)
The Extra Man (feature)
and 2 commericials

Lots of boxes and sorting and heavy lifting. All in all, last week was an estimated 12 TON week - lots of stuff, but not all of it we keep - not even close.

New York Clothing Bank got all the wardrobe sent directly to their warehouse.

Materials for the Arts is picking up a half a truckload from us next week.

Hour Children is picking 8 boxes of new children's clothes and toys.

Housing Works had an entire truck of beautiful furniture go directly to their warehouse as well a weekly pick up of used bubble wrap and used boxes (they do a lot of shipping)

Build it Green received 12 sinks, plumbing, lighting and some beautiful furniture.

Goodwill received two huge loads of home goods and clothing.

It's really amazing to watch the film industry contribute to all these different organizations. As an industry, I see more and more responsible decisions being made. We all have horror stories about dumpsters and perfectly good things going to waste. Slowly and surely that will be a practice in the past.

We do keep about 10% of the item for our Reuse Center and prop house. It helps us sustain operations and continue to advocate and research sustainable practices related to media production.

If you'd like to donate to Film Biz Recycling click here!

Coen Brothers Compost and divert 11.1 tons

Guest writer for Film Biz Recycling, Shannon E. Schaefer of
EcoSet Consulting, LLC, writes of her experience. Amazing!

11.1 Tons of Waste, Diverted

Last fall I had the honor to work on the Coen Brother’s latest feature film, “A Serious Man”. Throughout the 44 day shoot, and with the support of FOCUS Features we were able to divert 11.1 tons of set waste. Nearly 80% of the 14 tons of trash produced on set did not end up in the incinerators of Minneapolis, Minnesota. How? It was simple. We composted.

We recycled as well. But in the end, recycling our cardboard, bottles and cans accounted for less than one ton (6%) of our total set waste. This low percentage is in part because we provided reusable bottles and water stations, limiting the amount of plastic on set. Plastic water bottles were not totally banned, but the availability of water stations prevented over 10,000 plastic water bottles from being used. Not bad.

What about other 74% of our trash? We returned 10.3 tons of the set waste to the earth, via the age-old practice of composting.

Composting is fantastic. The sheer amount of set waste it can convert to “black gold” puts our old environmental “recycling is good enough” mantra to shame. We were able to compost virtually ALL of our catering and craft service waste: fruit, veggies, meat, bones, dairy, sugarcane plates and bowls, paper and corn cups, corn utensils, and paper napkins. Basically anything that was once an animal or a plant is now compost.

Our compost site wasn’t just any farmer’s pile. With the help of non-profit Eureka Recycling and local hauler Boone Trucking, we sent all of our plant and animal based waste to a commercial composting site. Commercial sites are different than a traditional backyard compost pile because they are well monitored and reach a much higher temperature, thus allowing us to compost alternative “plastic” products such as corn (PLA) cups and utensils.

Compostable vs. Biodegradable and Landfills

There is a common misconception about compostable and biodegradable products and what actually happens when you throw them away. With the rising popularity of “green” caterers and events using the alternative disposable products (corn/potato-ware, etc) I would like to take a moment explain what this actually means for the environment.

Biodegradable material is capable of being completely broken down into carbon dioxide, water and biomass with the aid of microorganisms. Compostable material biodegrades, but only under specific conditions – for example, the regulated high temperatures of a commercial composting site.

All of the PLA (polylactic acid, usually made from corn) products biodegrade only in high temperature compost conditions. Some potatoware and bagasse plate/bowl products (bagasse is the fibrous material leftover after sugarcane juice is extracted from its stalk) may biodegrade more readily, but do so fastest when in a controlled compost environment.

These organic based disposable products are a good alternative to plastic, which can take hundreds of years to decompose. It is also favorable that often they are produced in a more sustainable fashion than their plastic counterparts. But this is where the green party ends. When you throw your corn fork in the trash it goes to a landfill and as it breaks down it produces the same green house gas, methane, as any other garbage. Not only that but the organic acids produced in the biodegradation process create a toxic heavy metal leachate. Who would have thought corn to be so foul?

When the same PLA fork gets commercially composted, hydrolysis and microbial action breaks it down into carbon dioxide and water. Better? Yes. Perfect? No. There is no “best practice” when it comes to disposable products. There is still much debate about the sustainability of corn products such as PLA as well as other alternative goods. For now, it’s a step away from plastic and in the right direction. If you really want to be sustainable, use reusable flatware. If that is not an option, compost!

Start Composting on Set

Implementing composting takes a little effort, education and planning, and the resources are not everywhere yet. But demand brings supply. Please support your local haulers and commercial compost sites as well as the craft service and caterers who are attempting to “go green.” If the implementation of one new system was able to bring the Coen Brother’s set to 80% waste diversion so easily, I believe one day all film production sets could be at 100% zero waste. That is when filmmaking will start to become truly sustainable.


Shannon E. Schaefer
EcoSet Consulting, LLC
EcoShannon@gmail.com