Gary Huswit and Jessica Edwards’ “The Landfill†feels like one of those old segments on “Sesame Street,†or “Mr. Rogers, †where they show you something you always thought was boring, but by the end of it all, you learn something.
Smart, fast-paced and expertly shot, this is a short that gets to the point and doesn’t waste a second.
Landfills are what they are, right? The place where our garbage goes and stays, forever- or so we thought. The landfill Huswit and Edwards profile in New York manages to power 300-400 homes a year by turning the excess gas from the garbage it consumes and turning it into electricity. Pretty damn cool.
The quick shots of this massive “living organism,†as one of the workers calls it, brings the idea home rather quickly. After 197 in this short, one thing becomes clear, thanks to science, waste isn’t waste anymore. It’s actually a resource.
This information by itself would make for an interesting documentary short, but the people interviewed are lively and also help support the idea that landfills are commodities and not just a place where garbage goes to die.
The message is so clear and so compactly delivered that by the end of this short, you might actually think a landfill is where garbage goes to be reborn.
And you wouldn’t be that far off.
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