Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9221 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-07-16
• Format: NTSC
• Dimensions: .50" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .22 pounds

Amazon.com
Trashed is a provocative investigation of one of the fastest growing industries in North America. The garbage business. The film examines a fundamental element of modern American culture...the disposal of what our society defines as "waste." It is an issue influenced by every American, most of whom never consider the consequences. Nor, it seems, the implications to our biosphere. At times humorous, but deeply poignant, "Trashed" examines the American waste stream fast approaching a half billion tons annually.

What are the effects all this waste will have on already strained natural resources? Why is so much of it produced? While every American creates almost 5 pounds of it every day, who is affected most? And who wants America to make more?

The film analyzes the causes and effects of the seemingly innocuous act of "taking out the garbage" while showcasing the individuals, activists, corporate and advocacy groups working to affect change and reform the current model. "Trashed" is an informative and thought-provoking film everyone interested in the future of sustainability should see.

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Customer Reviews

Problems & solutions to our waste issues.
"Trashed" is an excellent documentary to increase awareness of the many issues revolving around trash. The U.S. now has around 10,000 landfills that are costing a fortune to maintain, creating massive amounts of methane, and leaching "garbage juice" into water supplies. In addition to the concerns from community activists, one of the most critical voices in "Trashed" is an executive for Waste Management, Inc. who says we need to get smarter and find alternatives to our "primitive" landfills. Among the alternatives are recycling, composting, better design of products, decreasing packaging, capturing the gasses being released by the landfills and much else. Visionary business people like Ray Anderson Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model propose that our landfills be mined for the resources they hold. Anderson, who is prominently featured in the film, runs one of the world's largest carpet and tile companies. He mentions how the book The Ecology of Commerce informed his own professional transformation.
"Trashed" is an excellent media tool for learning about the problems and opportunities associated with waste. It also reaffirms that there are many topics for us to deal with as a society, but that there are already countless people raising awareness and working on solutions.

See also:
A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil
The 11th Hour
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Plenty Magazine

Good, but could have been better....
The garbage crisis in this country needs more documentaries like 'Trashed' and it brings much needed attention to the problem. That being said, this documentary could have been much better than it was.

The best segments were the ones that focused on the reuse and recycling efforts of companies like Interface and Urban Ore and the individuals living the "freegan" lifestyle of anti-consumption. Unfortunately, the back-to-back interviews with local activists and government officials were tedious and didn't offer much of interest. The politicians they interviewed were predictably evasive and the community activists didn't offer anything other than repetitive preachy soundbites about how awful the current system of landfill dumping is. Neither group contributed anything interesting or useful to the discussion.

This is a good documentary and worth watching once, but it's not the kind of film that you will want to see more than that. It relies too heavily on interviews with corporate spokesmen and community leaders that don't really do more than complain about the problem instead of exploring possible solutions. This film doesn't spend enough time exploring alternatives to landfilling, the segments on recycling and reuse were good but too brief, not to mention the huge areas of the waste management industry that were completely ignored (i.e. waste-to-energy incineration plants, the very lucrative scrap metal industry, collect and reuse schemes commonly seen in Europe).

Overall, this film was good but certainly not great.

Great film--inspiring and motivating
This film is excellent--while the problems it highlights are certainly frustrating, the film got me fired up to make a change. There are great interviews (particularly Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc.), and I learned a lot. Highly recommended.