I have a great appreciation for talented and creative souls. The team over at free range studios are gifted to say the least. A few months ago I watched their Meatrix series and I was an instant fan. free range has a bevy of talent with gifted flash programmers, illustrators and writers.
Recently, they were hired by Participant Productions to produce “Backwards Hamburger” to help promote Fast Food Nation that will hit theatres on November 17th. The animated film follows a burger backwards to the feedlot, and identifies the many environmental and social costs that go into that grilled morsel of meat we call a burger. After watching the short clip it has me wanting to sit outside my local Burger King or McDonald’s with my laptop showing people this video clip. Perhaps we can change people’s minds into eating locally instead of these powerhouse fast food chains. I think Bentley and I should mark a date in our calendars to go see Fast Food Nation. We will write a review of the movie and post in our website. If anyone wants to post their review, feel free to email us and we will gladly post it.
Here is a synopsis of Fast Food Nation from the website:
Inspired by the incendiary bestseller that exposed the hidden facts behind America’s fast food industry comes a powerful drama that takes an eye-opening journey into the dark heart of the All-American meal. Richard Linklater’s FAST FOOD NATION traces the birth of an everyday, ordinary burger through a chain of riveting, interlocked human stories – from a hopeful, young immigrant couple who cross the border to work in a perilous meat-packing plant, to a teen clerk who dreams of life beyond the counter; to the corporate marketing whiz who is shocked to discover that his latest burger invention – “The Big One” – is literally full of manure. As the film traverses from pristine barbeque smoke labs to the volatile U.S.-Mexican border, it unveils a provocative portrait of all the yearning, ambition, corruption and hope that lies inside what America is biting into.
What do you get when you combine thousands of screaming sports fans and a non-existent recycling policy?
That’s right – a big stinking heap of landfill waste.
Apologies for the negative tone in this post. I generally prefer to focus on the positive ‘green’ things that are happening in the world, but every now and again I think a little ‘bad press’ can be helpful as well.
I came across a Winnipeg Free Press article this morning that certainly surprised me – it discussed the less-than-exemplary waste management policies currently in place at two of Winnipeg’s major sporting/entertainment facilities, Canad Inns Stadium and the MTS Centre.
I guess I was (naively) under the impression that any large Canadian facility would at least have a standard recycling policy these days – but apparently this is not in fact the case.
Here is an exerpt:
CANAD Inns Stadium is ready for the Cup, but has no plans for the bottle.
Winnipeg’s football stadium does not recycle plastic pop and water bottles, plastic beer cups or any other materials sold at concessions, operations manager Graham Hunter said Wednesday.
That means on Grey Cup Sunday, all eyes in Canada will be fixed on what may be the only Canadian Football League facility that does not have a recycling program.
“It’s just not something we’ve gotten around to yet,” said Hunter, an employee of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, which assumed ownership of Canad Inns Stadium from the City of Winnipeg in 2004.
Canad Inns Stadium returns beer bottles and cans to its alcohol distributors, but does not collect other empty containers. At least five of the seven other Canadian Football League facilities have more aggressive recycling programs.
In Edmonton, Commonwealth Stadium recovers not just plastic bottles, but paper, cardboard and cooking oil. In Montreal, Molson Stadium recycles hotdog wrappers.
In Regina, Mosaic Stadium recovers plastic beer cups. And in Calgary, McMahon Stadium actually hires people to pick through garbage to remove erroneously discarded recyclables.
As I mentioned above, Canad Inns is not the only offender – the MTS hockey and entertainment centre throws out much of its recyclable waste, even though they employ blue boxes onsite!
According to their senior vice president, people are throwing too much non-recyclable waste into the containers, thus making proper separation and recycling cost-prohibitive. He is quoted in the article as saying “We’re hoping as people become more compliant, it will be easier for us to pull the trigger and roll out our (full) recycling plan.”
Hmmmmmm…:roll:
In my humble opinion, in order for people to “become more compliant” they first need to be properly educated. Simply placing some blue boxes in the building and waiting for the public to smarten up definitely doesn’t sound like a great policy to me.
Anyway, this post is definitely not meant to be an angry rant. I just find it disappointing to see such large-scale irresponsibility when environmentally-friendly solutions could be implemented without too much difficulty.
I at least found it heartwarming to learn that the Free Press story came about as a result of a phone call from a disgruntled 16 year old – Lauren Halowaty, who works (hopefully still does!) for the catering company contracted for concession stand sales at both facilities.
Here were her thoughts on the matter: “Whenever we can recycle, we should” & “In places this big, it should be (compulsory).”
I couldn’t agree more, and certainly commend Lauren for her eco-heroism!
I love it when a plan comes together and eco-ventures are successful. The GreenPark wind turbine is a giant success. According to the article in the Reading Evening Post, the turbine has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by an amount equal to more than 1,3000 return flights to New York.
The Turbine is located at junction 11 of the M4 motorway on the outskirts of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. GreenPark is a business park and approximately 2000 people work on site.
The turbine, owned by Ecotricity, is 85 m (279 ft) tall and the blades are 33 m (108 ft) long. At a wind speed of 14 m/s (31 mph) the machine generates 2.05 MW of electricity. November marks the one-year anniversary for the GreenPark turbine and the stats are in.
According to stats released to the Evening Post, the turbine has produced almost 2.5 million kilowatts of green electricity in the past 12 months.
The electricity generated through wind energy means the turbine has saved the planet the emission of exactly 2,081,283.42 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide. That represents the CO2 emission of 1,351 return flights from London to New York, or the annual CO2 emission from 867 cars.
The GreenPark wind turbine is a great example of alternative energy that works. Wind is an abundant source of energy that will never run out. Wind energy doesn’t produce pollutants of any kind and its energy can be harnessed without causing damage to the environment.
