Vinyl. It's everywhere: on the outside of your houses, in your clothes and in your hairspray. It's America's most popular and second fastest-selling plastic. You probably don't give it much thought, after all - it's just another one of those cheap and easily adaptable materials.
"Blue Vinyl," however, will make you think twice about this material, which the industry wants us to believe is as natural as table salt, but which can actually be a carcinogenic hazard.
Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold combine humor, investigative journalism, and scientific research to produce what the Environmental Building News referred to as the green building movement's own "cult classic."
Helfand screened the film on Thursday night, and was present to answer questions about the
documentary.
The strength of "Blue Vinyl" lies in highlighting the relationship between personal and corporate worlds. The odyssey begins when Helfand's parents decide to re-side their house with vinyl because it is cheap and looks like wood. This takes Helfand to Lake Charles, Louisiana - home of America's vinyl factories - where she runs into both the culprits and victims of the industry.
Vinyl, it turns out, is fine as a completed product that remains on the outside of your house. What's dangerous is its production and disposal, as both cause the release of dioxin, which one scientist refers to as the "Watergate of molecules." High levels of dioxin exposure have caused a number of workers to develop Angio Sarcoma - cancer of the liver.
The realities are harsh, and Helfand aims to do to vinyl what previous investigative journalists did to asbestos.
There is an interview with a worker who lost his voice while working in vinyl production and who can now only speak through a mechanical device. This cuts to Helfand trying to get a word in with the "higher powers" - the busy execs who are dismissive and formulaic in their responses.
There is a dark humor in their insistence. According to them, since vinyl is made with the same chemicals that make up table salt and that naturally exist in our bodies, it is just as harmless. Their message to the public is that vinyl is simply "indispensable."
Helfand, in the dialogue that followed the screening of the film, remarked that this would be akin to saying that since carbon and oxygen are naturally present in our bodies, inhaling carbon-dioxide is healthy.
Despite the gravity of the topics of chemical exposure and corporate intractability, the film is both funny and entertaining.
Helfand's relentless, energetic insistence on getting to the bottom of the issue can only be inspiring, as she travels across the country, trailed by her cameraman and firmly grasping a piece of vinyl in her hand.
A number of the characters in the film are downright hilarious, like the scientist who tells Helfand exactly how he wants to be interviewed, or the stubborn father who insists that PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is great because it doesn't dent.
It is also a lot of fun to watch Helfand embark on a journey to find vinyl alternatives, which brings her to some bizarre-looking houses in environmentally-conscious California, and has her join fellow environmentalists, the "Bucket Brigade," in collecting air in zip-lock bags.
It's great to see a so-called "green builder" - i.e. a tree-hugging hippie - attempting to turn Helfland's parents over to "healthier" alternatives. The green builder refuses to sleep in the parents' vinyl-covered house and so has resorted to sleeping in a tent.
Meanwhile, Helfand's mom refuses to let her house be turned into a "clay hut." Mom and Dad do warm to their hippie guest eventually, which amounts to the fact that they allow him to adjust their satellite. In other words, he completely fails and Helfand has to embark on more quests for alternatives.
There are many tangents, but Helfand still makes her point clear: consumers can determine what products make it on the market, and we should all be more aware of balancing cost of product with cost of health. According to Helfand's film, we don't have to live in clay huts, but a willingness to pay just that little bit more for vinyl alternatives might be a life-saving choice.
