Justin Schneider
justin.schneider@heraldbulletin.com
The battle over a proposed Madison County landfill could be coming to a small screen near you.
“Trashed,” a 77-minute documentary by Chicago filmmaker Bill Kirkos, is available for purchase via Internet. The film includes a segment focusing on the 28-year fight over Mallard Lake Landfill.
After spending two years producing the film, Kirkos said he took a solution-oriented approach.
“Having solutions as a predominant part of the film was my goal,” he said. “You don’t get anywhere if you don’t get a well-rounded discussion, including people who are affected by the end result. That’s where the good people of Anderson come in. But I wanted people to walk out of the theater with more solutions than doom and gloom.”
“Trashed” is available for $13 through www.createspace.com. Visitors to the film site, www.trashedmovie.com, can also link to it. Kirkos said more than 600 people attended the July 26 premiere of the film in Chicago, and the DVD has been available since then.
Kirkos contends in “Trashed” that the waste removal system in America is unsustainable. Americans generate around 4 1/2 pounds per day.
In 1978, JM Corp. announced plans to create Mallard Lake Landfill northeast of Anderson. But the project has been mired in controversy and legal battles for parts of four decades, due in part to its proximity to Killbuck Elementary School.
“Trashed” features about eight minutes of footage dedicated to the Mallard Lake situation, beginning at the 11:45 mark. Kirkos interviewed landfill opponents Helen Wean, Bill Kutschera and Sheryl Myers, Indiana Department of Environmental Management Director Tom Easterly, and the man behind Mallard Lake, Ralph Reed.
“It’s very good and it’s not just because we’re in it a bunch,” said Wean, who loaned her copy to The Herald Bulletin. “I would put it right up there with Michael Moore’s (work). I think it’s that compelling. ”
The film includes footage shot during a recreation of an early 1990s landfill protest. In it, children and adults clasp hands, forming a human chain around Killbuck Elementary School and chanting: “Landfill, landfill go away, leave us safe to learn and play.”
Reed says in the film that the Killbuck Concerned Citizens Association, a landfill opposition group, has moved away from due process of law to “vitriolic” personal attacks. He admits to recycling, saying he recycles his newspaper, but says recycling is a losing business.
“That’s what rules everything is money,” Reed said. “People don’t like the landfill situation, but they don’t have any alternative. Nobody is making money in recycling and about every place they are doing it, it has to be subsidized.”
Kutschera, president of the KCCA, said the group is organizing public showings of the film.
“I have been in contact with (Kirkos) and have asked him for permission to screen it here in Madison County,” Kutschera said. “We’re still waiting for written approval, which is, of course, required. We’re talking with different venues to reach a decision as to where and when.”
Kirkos said he encourages such showings.
“I absolutely want them to be able to show it,” he said. “Letting others see ‘Trashed’ was the whole reason behind the project.”
The soundtrack for the film, composed by Nicholas Markos, is also available for sale at www.tierecords.com.
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“Trashed” on DVD
Chicago-based filmmaker Bill Kirkos spent two years producing “Trashed,” a 77-minute documentary about waste in America. His research included interviews with the parties involved in the Mallard Lake Landfill dispute in Madison County. Now the film is available on DVD for $13 at www.createspace.com or by linking from the “Trashed” site, www.trashedmovie.com.
