Greening Vancouver: Greening Vancouver: Reel Green B.C.'s Reel Reuse Website Launch

By: Green Blogger

At the recent Reel Green Forum B.C., Rex Weyler, journalist and ecologist opened up the afternoon's panel by pointing out that "our planet's income is solar energy, we have to live off it." He made another bold statement when he said, "the economic crash was in fact an ecological crash."

Regarding the planet's energy wealth in terms of sunshine, Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute, has this to say:

Every 70 minutes or so, the sun supplies the Earth with enough energy to run global civilization for a year. An average square meter of land receives each year as much energy from the sun as is in a barrel of oil, and it falls reliably, freely, and relatively evenly on rich and poor alike. The world’s electricity use could in theory be provided 20 times over just by modern 20-percent-efficient solar cells on the rooftops of buildings in the 1 percent of land area that dense cities already cover. Solar power is always in stock, never runs out (even at night when it’s shining elsewhere), is safe, and never threatens us with terrorist plots. - RMI Newsletter, Dec. 09

The occasion for the Reel Green Forum B.C. gathering in November at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver was the announcement and introduction of the Reel Green Reuse Website a.k.a. B.C. Industrial Materials Exchange. Peter Mitchell, Co-Chair of MPPIA Environment Committee and COO of Vancouver Film Studios; Gordon Hardwick, BC Film Commission Manager; Brock MacDonald, Exec. Director Recycling Council of BC were on hand to introduce the new website and Recycling Tool that is the culmination of a concerted effort.

The Reel Green Reuse Exchange website was built and launched by the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of BC, the Directors’ Guild of Canada - BC District Council, the British Columbia Film Commission, IATSE Local 891, and the Recycling Council of BC.

Mitchell's goals are nothing if not ambitious and would like to see every film produced and shot in Vancouver tagged as a "zero footprint film." He'd like to see every component of production fully recyclable, "We must become the New Hollywood because we're so much ahead of what's going on in L.A.," vis a vis green.

Brock MacDonald stated his equally ambitious vision for making sustainable B.C.'s film industry, saying that he's looking to see a "closed loop system" created. He used the acronym EPR when referring to the concept of Extended Producer's Responsibility. "We want to plan a production from a zero waste perspective," he commented.

Warren Carr is one local insider who’s gone green. A Vancouver-based, Emmy-award winning producer, he founded The Pacific Green Group Ltd., and is producing a new show that’s recycling, composting, and using local food and hybrid cars.

“It used to be that all sets just went straight to the landfill,” Carr explains. Now, on sets around town, “wood waste is recycled and made into particle board, carpets are given away to charity . . . . If anything has come out of the last few years, it’s the idea of ‘who else can use this?’” Read more Here

Also Here: http://greeningvancouver.wordpress.com/

Green Blog Network * Greening Vancouver * Greening Hollywood

Some of the stated goals for Genuine Sustainability in the B.C. Film Industry:

* Distinctively Serious Practices

* Reduce Vehicle Use

* Reduce CO2 Emission

* 100% Recycling and Reuse all materials [Nature recycles everything.]

* Establish an industry recycling, re-use warehouse

* Tell stories that honor and glorify "Simple Living" values [Cultural change is about story telling]

* Focus on the Front End : Don't create waste to begin with

* Implement ecological building codes: Heat pumps, insulate

* Create permanent, changeable locations