Trashed (2012)

Interesting facts

Trashed is an environmental documentary film, written and directed by British film-maker Candida Brady. It follows actor Jeremy Irons as he investigates the global scale and impact of humanity's modern wasteful consumerism and pollution. The film is a call for urgent action to resolve the issue of existing deposits and drastically reduce our consumption towards sustainable levels and zero waste, but also demonstrates how this is already being achieved successfully in many communities around the world.

Production

It was produced by Blenheim Films and released by First Pond Entertainment (USA). Candida Brady wrote, directed and co-produced (along Titus Ogilvy) the film. Jeremy Irons, Rose Ganguzza and Tom Wesel worked as executive producers, while Tabitha Troughton as associate producer. Garry Waller worked as art director, while Sean Bobbitt was the cinematographer.

The director Candida Brady notes they tried to address potential backlash "by putting all the science together in one place ... we've got 84 peer-reviewed published studies, so that you couldn't dispute it. I think a lot of the problems that films have had in the past were things that don't stand up when you look a little further".

It took Brady over two years of research, during which she felt various emotions as she became too close to the subject. She notes that "what did become very clear to me, is that it is such a complicated subject, waste almost needs its own worldwide regulatory body because it is too much for most people, and they will have knowledge of one area but not another".

However, compared to many other environmental documentaries it is very critical of the incinerations and waste-to-energy plants, because it is related to the "issue of dioxin pollution – a by-product of incineration, which in high doses can cause a range of health problems including cancer, reproductive difficulties and birth defects", and it is not a long-term solution to resolve the issue of global waste production, compared to zero waste appro…

According to Irons, the director Brady decided to show the footage of jars containing preserved foetuses with birth defects in a hospital in Vietnam because of two reasons; to most people the dioxins, furans, PCBs and other toxic chemicals are all just words, until they see and understand their impact in the human body and on life in general.

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