Product Details

• Region: All Regions
• Studio: CustomFlix
• DVD Release Date: July 16, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000TRH4CQ
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,669 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but could have been better...., July 13, 2008

By	JG (Valley Stream, New York USA) - See all my reviews

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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.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Problems & solutions to our waste issues., January 1, 2008

By	Preston C. Enright (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"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

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not balanced enough for school use, July 29, 2008

By	Thomas R. Wellnitz (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I looked at Trashed for use with high school students who were studying materials use. I was disappointed because the information at the beginning seems out of date. New landfills are much better designed with regards to groundwater pollution and methane recapture than those made 20 or 30 years ago. The production doesn't present much information from someone involved with building a new one. In many states, you can't put yard waste into the landfill anymore, a big point of the composting segment. Students might get more from a video that actually shows how a large recycling system sorts the mixed trash because many people won't sort their trash. Trashed doesn't present much about the largest component of the waste stream, mainly construction debris -- used concrete, roofing materials, mixed wood and gypsum walls, etc. I would have liked more information about the efforts being made in Europe to design products with their eventual reuse or disposal in mind. There has to be more out there than the Interface company which shows up in almost every documentary related to sustainable economies.