Film tracks family's garbage production

The McDonald family knows their garbage intimately. They lived with every used plastic fork, balled-up candy wrapper and ripped shred of holiday paper for three whole months. Instead of chucking it out of their home – and minds – every week, they stored it in their increasingly pungent and maggot-infested garage.

"It was eye-opening," says Glen McDonald, who reluctantly agreed to the project as part of his friend Andrew Nisker's documentary on household garbage, called Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home.

The idea was to document how much garbage a typical family in Toronto produces – in diapers, takeout containers, magazines and plastic bags. The family was filmed in 2005 during the most consumer-frenzied season of the year: Christmas.

"The McDonalds produced more waste in December than October and November combined," said Nisker, who wrote, shot, directed, produced and edited the 76-minute film himself. Nisker's hope is to start a conservation revolution in our homes. And, as part of a new trend in independent films with an activist bent, he's releasing the documentary online. Already, he's booked 30 screening parties in people's homes and schools from Israel to South Africa. You can get the film at: www.garbagerevolution.com.

Since the three-month garbage experiment, the McDonalds have turned over a new, greener leaf. They've exchanged their two SUVs for less polluting vehicles, replaced all five water-guzzling toilets in their north Toronto home with low-flush models, converted to reusable cloth shopping bags, and given up buying bottled water.

When they finally lugged their garbage out to a truck to haul it away, they had accumulated double what they'd predicted: 83 bags. Plus 145 kilograms of compost which they weighed and disposed of each week. They then hosed their garage down.

[Source: thestar.com in November 2007 WasteWatch]

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