Tuesday, May 13^th

9:00pm e/p

“Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Recycle” 

Recycling efforts have come a long way since the bottle bills of the 1970s – a good thing, since the U.S. produces 400 MILLION tons of garbage per year. Individuals and organizations are taking on the challenge of recycling everything from computers to medicine bottles to handbags.  The methods can be can be as simple as re-use, or as technologically sophisticated as chemically transforming one discarded material to create another.

9:35pm e/p

Burning the Future: Coal in America - Directed by David Novack.  This timely documentary takes us to the Appalachian Mountains of southern West Virginia to explore the political, economic and environmental issues surrounding coal, the source of more than half of U.S. electricity.  At particular issue is the controversial above-ground mining technique known as mountaintop removal, which is defended as safe by the coal industry but opposed by a growing number of residents who believe it is a threat their land, their health and their unique way of life.  Burning the Future offers a penetrating portrait of the hidden cost of coal as it follows the efforts of those trying to halt mountaintop removal, including an ecology professor and a working mother whose Appalachian roots stretch back to the 1700s.