Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46371 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-03-29
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 178 minutes

Amazon.com
Part family comedy and part horrifying investigative reportage, Blue Vinyl can make one simultaneously laugh and shiver with fear in the same, deceptively low-key moments. Documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand, upset that her parents are re-siding their house with blue vinyl, sets out (with co-director Daniel B. Gold) to discover how vinyl is made and why, according to some scientists, it is the most hazardous of synthetic materials. Along the way, she meets industry representatives who tell her the key chemical ingredient in vinyl, chloride, is no more toxic than table salt. She also travels to Venice, Italy, to meet with families of vinyl factory workers dead or dying from chemical exposure, and she visits an intrepid, Louisiana attorney who has sued American vinyl manufacturers on behalf of severely injured former employees. The tale is grim, yet the often on-screen Helfand's approach is folksy and calm--less so when her skeptical parents reject, in several funny scenes, even empirical data about a product they find so convenient. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Dioxin & Vinyl Chloride Are Bad For Your Health & The Environment
A very well done documentary that is thoroughly engaging and relevant to our times. Judith Helfand does a great job in her research of vinyl production and how bad it is for ones health and the environment. I think it is great that she tells us why she decided to do research on vinyl.

Vinyl is very pervasive and is used in construction, medical products, packaging material, toys, automotive and electronic products. In watching "Blue Vinyl", one learns that making vinyl (or polyvinyl chloride short for pvc) is hazardous to produce, as vinyl chloride, has been known to cause various forms of cancer. Plus when destroyed through burning, vinyl emits a toxic gas called dioxin into the environment, which isn't healthy to breathe.

Too slow and insipid - oft seen story
The documentary talks about big corporation and pollution issues around vinyl - but the narrative is too slow and seems too familiar, with many of us having seen the similar issues addressed in other documentaries.

Informative & funny!

Good flick. Easy to understand. Even kids can watch it.

I loan this to my architectural clients before they make decisions.
It often prevents them from making unhealthy/environmentally detrimental choices.

It's entertaining & funny also - always a good tool for getting people interested.