I netflixed Blue Vinyl on Worsted Witch’s recommendation, and now wished I’d moved it up my queue! (sidenote: I have 187 films in my queue. You? Also, when is Weeds season 2 coming out?)

This is a personal story turned documentary. Judith Helfand (one of the creators of the film) watches as her parents replace the former wood siding on their house’s exterior with baby blue vinyl siding. The vinyl’s cheap, durable, supposed to be safe — and even comes textured with a wood-like design.

But Judith isn’t so convinced. So she decides to investigate where exactly vinyl comes from, and if, indeed, the stuff is benign.

Turns out, vinyl’s far from safe — and is especially unsafe for workers producing the stuff, many of whom have died or survived a rare cancer closely linked with vinyl production.

In fact in Venice, Italy, executives of a vinyl manufacturing company were tried for manslaughter, for willfully hiding info about the cancerous effects of working in said factory. We see a scientist who reported to this vinyl company — before everyone started dying — that the chemicals in vinyl production did indeed cause a rare form of cancer, testify to this fact at the hearing. The scene when a man who’s lost his larynx speaks through his monotone, mechanical voice box about all his dead co-workers is especially painful.

You hear Americans ask questions at a meeting convened by a vinyl company in an attempt to assure nearby residents that what they’re doing is super safe. One resident asks about an incident when the company factories spewed pollutants that were visibly big enough to rain onto their bodies, forcing residents to run into their houses covering their faces. Another asks why, when the trees in the ‘hood are all green, the trees facing the factories are brown.

The film isn’t simply a one-sided tirade against vinyl. You hear residents of towns where vinyl companies do business, saying that yes, there are downsides, but that’s just the cost of business and that these companies provide jobs. You see Habitat for Humanity create homes made entirely of vinyl donated by vinyl companies — and brand new homeowners crying because they’re so grateful to have a home of their own.

And yet, what becomes very clear is that the big winners are the vinyl companies, and the big losers is the public at large.

Judith takes this huge, worldwide issue and applies it to the personal — by slowly trying to convince her parents to replace the vinyl siding with something more eco friendly — in a symbolic gesture that’ll hopefully start getting people to think twice about vinyl.

Most of you reading green LA girl already know about the horrific ills of PVC, the main stuff vinyl’s made of — partly due to the work done by Blue Vinyl in educating us about PVC. If you haven’t already, stop buying anything new that contains vinyl / PVC –

And if you have a minute, check out Blue Vinyl’s consumer advocacy site, My House is Your House. Then check out its tips for direct action.

Tags: vinyl, bluevinyl, pvc, environment, toxic, poison

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