WEBVTT

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[music]

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I like the house better
like this when it was red

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and made of wood. What I would like you to do is
to go around the house with the video camera.

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Yeah. And take pictures of the
(inaudible) in the house.

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The… the red wood and then you’ll realize

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that it has to be video… Ma,
what does (inaudible) mean?

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Umm… rotten. See this. What is it?
Rotten wooden,

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it’s damp, didn’t even rain today.
Come close,

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do you see how it, how soft it is? Squeeze the
wood, press the wood, never mind the video.

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Yak(ph). Okay. But vinyl, it’s not

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even a natural fiber. It’ll look so much like wood.
What? You just have like a little wood thing or…

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Yes, yes. You got fake little
wood things on it. You got like,

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what do you call that, dad? It’s embossed.
Embossed. You embossed it with fake wood print.

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Think of it as a, as an outer coat.
It’s threadbare, it’s warm.

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It needs replacement. I can
understand your attachment to…

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you know, your childhood
and where you grew up

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but lots of things happen in
life and changes are made.

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And we have to be able to roll with it.
I think, you’re reacting to this like

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it’s a loss in your life. You’re gonna lose a lot of
other precious things in your life as time goes on.

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And you already have, you’ve
had one terrible loss.

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So I… I just feel, you’re
overreacting a little bit.

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[sil.]

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The \"loss\" my mother was referring to was the
radical hysterectomy I had when I was 25.

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Back when she was pregnant with me, my
mother was given a drug called \"DES,\"

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a synthetic estrogen that was
supposed to prevent miscarriage.

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Turned out the pharmaceutical industry
knew all along that it didn’t.

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What it did do was give me a
rare form of cervical cancer.

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Up to that point,

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the dangers of toxic chemical
exposure hadn’t really worried me.

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But then, I started questioning everything.

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Can I keep in the shutters? I don’t
know about the shutters. Uh…

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Don’t… don’t, you know, are they, are
they made of wood? No, these are vinyl.

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They’re vinyl. Oh, they’ll probably keep them.
You think you’ll keep ‘em? Oh, sure, yeah.

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Tell Jerry to save those shutters,
they’re new. Okay, Jerry. Yep.

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Did you hear my mother? Yeah, I did.
Save the shutters Uh-hmm. They’re new.

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Everyone assured me vinyl siding was safe

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and would only let off toxic gas
in the rare event of a house fire.

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But after my experience with
DES, I figured any material

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so loaded with synthetic chemicals
had to pose some kind of risk.

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Later, I asked my dad,

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\"If you had known that over the course of its
lifecycle from the factory to the incinerator,

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vinyl produces a wide array of deadly
pollutants that threaten our future

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with a global toxic crisis. Would
you still put it on the house?\"

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\"I hope not, honey.\" he said.

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But they didn’t write that on the box.

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[sil.]

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I wanted to go to the source of

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my parents vinyl siding. And since Louisiana
produces about a third of North America’s PVC,

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the key ingredient in all vinyl
products, there’s a good chance,

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it started right here. Lucky for
me, I arrived in Lake Charles

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just in time for mardi gras (inaudible).

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Oh, my parents put umm…
vinyl siding on our house.

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And I’m, I came to the
vinyl capital of America

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to find out all about it.

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[music]

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I brought my vinyl. All
right, that’s beautiful.

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Oh, my God. Oh!

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[music]

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I mean a lot of people don’t say
there’s a whole lot of cancer in town.

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I don’t know if that’s a real connection or not,
all these chemicals but you know, a lot of folks…

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You hear a lot of people that talk about cancer and all about.
They say that but nowadays everything is you can’t. Yeah.

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You look on the packet equal or sweeten low, it’s got that
(inaudible) or whatever. They were saying mother’s milk.

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Yeah. Okay. Baken. The chemicals
in the plants here are really bad.

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You know, what you think in the air falling
like smoking. Now asthma real bad so oh,

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no, I just stay in the house, not all the time, you
know, we get out, look at her face. Yeah. She’s like,

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\"Oh, we’re in the hazardous, hazardous zone.\" But any
place if they have plants or any kind of chemicals,

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you’re gonna, I mean, that’s just that thing that goes
along with it. Yeah. You gotta real loss. Still the plants

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do make a lot of good things, you know, that help kids and
help people. At anytime there is something that is hazardous,

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they take care of it right away. I mean,
you know, they’re good about that. Yeah.

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If we ever get blown up you, that’s
a different story. That’s, yeah.

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[music]

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Right here, in Mossville across the street
from my house, they have byproducts

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that are released. I have not
been able to prove this,

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but I just believe, truly believe that I

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could have gotten cancer from the
byproducts that they release

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when they burn their chemicals.
That’s what I truly believe.

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[music]

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Let’s just say safety is a really
big issue in Lake Charles.

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In fact, while I was in town,
the local industries held the

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first-ever community-wide risk management
meeting. Their goal was to reassure

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area residents that in the event of a worst-case
scenario, everything is under control.

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But I have here a graph

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which shows the concentration at
any one point from a release and

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how that release would go through a community. I’d
like to ask you a question, please. During the summer,

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we have one of the flares across the street
from my house that let out some raw material.

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When I said raw material,
it was falling on you

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as you were outside. You had to run
in the house and with your hands

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on your face to be able to breathe.
You leave here and go up,

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no offer here. And you look and see how
green the trees it is on both sides. Here,

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on the south side, they’re brown.

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Do you, do you think that’s a chemical that’s
killed, or do you think that’s natural?

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Sometime we can give you a tour out there and let
you see the control facilities on those things.

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(inaudible) 35 years and (inaudible).
I know what goes up.

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I don’t need your tour. I’m
telling you what I know.

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[music]

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Maybe Mr. Hardy didn’t
need a tour but I did.

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My father’s answered a rotten wood
was looking more and more like

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somebody else’s toxic hazard. And I
wanted a better idea of just what went on

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inside a vinyl plant. But when
I tried to arrange a visit,

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the public relations officer turned me down and instead
referred me to the industry’s trade association,

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\"The Vinyl Institute.\"

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So I went to their website
at www.vinylinfo.org.

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Turns out it’s not just the
siding on my parents’ house

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with the stackable record albums but from the
time you wake up till the time you go to sleep,

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vinyl is everywhere or as they put it,

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vinyl is making a difference every day.

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[music]

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The vinyl Institute’s mission statement
says that it was created to protect

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and promote vinyl.

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But when I did a web search for PVC as
vinyl is commonly known, I found out

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it was really about damage control.
Apparently, there was

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a series of big fires back in the
‘70s and early ‘80s, including one at

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the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

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A lot of people died in that fire. And it was
partly the toxic fumes from PVC products

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that killed them. Needless to say,

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PVC got quite a bit of bad press in those
years. And if there was ever a product

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that needed a trade
association, vinyl was it.

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The Vinyl Institute still spends
a lot of time on the defensive.

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I actually went to one conference
exclusively devoted to finding alternatives

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to PVC and building construction.
Since the construction industry

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represents more than 75% of the
PVC market, it’s not surprising

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that the vinyl institute
turned out in force.

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Vinyl is one material that has
nearly in, infinite number of uses.

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It puts low maintenance siding
on your houses. It brings uh…

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valuable blood and medical products to you
when you and your loved ones are in need.

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It makes soft, durable,
flexible toys available

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for children. And it’s also indispensable
in food packaging as well.

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You look at it just like, \"Oh, my God, this piece of vinyl
siding.\" Like, \"I feel very comfortable touching it. I’m hung it.

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I’ve put it on people’s houses, I really like
it.\" I think it’s a really great product.

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It uses our umm… resources well.
It’s 56% chlorine.

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We have a lot of chlorine in the world. We got a lot of
salt in the ocean. We’re not hurting the environment.

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If there were a better replacement for
PVC out there, they’d be using it today.

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And PVC is a good product and

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the whole chlorine molecules
we’ve got saved a lot of lives.

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Sodium chloride, NaCl,

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if you didn’t have it in your body, you
wouldn’t live. Indispensable weights.

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It’s indispensable, it gives your…
you know, when you are umm…

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you tell your hands your hands
move, it’s the sodium molecules

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inside that are telling your hands to do.
It sends the signal.

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So if you didn’t have it, you wouldn’t
be here. And they try to make me believe

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that it’s bad. But, you know what, your father doesn’t have
to worry about his vinyl side. Yeah, yeah, he really doesn’t.

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I… I promise you, I promise you.

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It’s not as bad as it was made up. My
father’s not worried about his vinyl siding.

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I’m worried about his vinyl siding. I thought you worry about
his vinyl siding and you losed a lot of sleep for nothing.

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Now I was really worried. The Vinyl Institute
representatives wanted me to believe

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that vinyl and table salt were
more or less the same thing.

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Even I knew they weren’t. The problem was
my grasp of basic chemistry stopped there.

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I needed a science lesson. So I
invited some experts to the house.

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[sil.]

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I basically brought Joe here. What?

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Put your hands down. Put my hands down?

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Joe, mom. Mom, Joe. Hi, Joe. Kind of nice to meet.
You look at a house like this, and the vinyl

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seems perfectly harmless. It’s just sitting there
in front of the house, nobody is falling down

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with any diseases. But that’s if you are
only looking at the product itself.

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If you look at its entire life
cycle from the moment its produced

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through its use to the way it’s disposed
of, vinyl turns out to be the most

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environmentally hazardous consumer
product on Earth. Vinyl is the source of

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more persistent toxic pollutants,
dioxin in particular than

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any other single product in the world.
Dioxin is, you know,

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a huge topic. Umm… Some people call
it the watergate of molecules.

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[sil.]

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PVC contains more chlorine than any other type of
plastic. And the vinyl industry says that’s a good thing.

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They call PVC, the versatile plastic.

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Start with the basics and then
we’ll move into the details.

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Greenpeace calls it the poison plastic.
Granted,

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these guys were biased in favor of saving the planet and
its inhabitants but I didn’t have a problem with that.

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\"Exposure to a single PVC fire can cause

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permanent respiratory disease.\" The
International Association of Firefighters.

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Let’s just talk about this house,
in its inert form on the house,

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it’s fine, unless, of course, there’s a
house fire. And then it would be harmful

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to the neighbors. Or yourself.
Or certainly to ourselves.

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In fact, people will die from inhaling the
gases long before the flames reached them.

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There’s no shortage of PVC in the world,

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and production is going up every year.
The problem is it’s hard to get rid of.

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PVC is expensive and inconvenient
to recycle. So most of it

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just ends up in landfills or incinerators,

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which brings us back to dioxin, a
toxic pollutant that’s created

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at both ends of the PVC lifecycle when it’s
manufactured and when it’s thrown away and burned.

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Dioxin causes many types of cancer and

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a whole range of other effects especially
those that affect the unborn infant

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and the newly born child. Umm… And
dad, in this context, it’s sort of,

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it could act on the fetus the
way DES acted on me. Uh-hmm.

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So it’s not just the people in Louisiana,

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it’s everybody in the world essentially
that’s getting dangerous level of dioxin.

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My father was still skeptical,

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say Greenpeace to him and all he
heard was whale saving radicals.

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I had no doubts about their facts.
But my dad needed a second opinion.

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So I went to talk to a scientist highly regarded
by both environmentalists and industry.

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Dioxin is umm… it’s…

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it’s not a chemical, it has a purpose in
itself. It’s an unwanted contaminant.

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It lasts very long in the environment. It
lasts a long time in our bodies if you had

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10 units of exposure to dioxin today,
10 years from now, you still have

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five units of those left. So
it’s a compound that’s toxic

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and it’s not degraded by us or… or by the environment.
So a little bit of dioxin goes a long, long way.

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At this point, one thing was clear to me.

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If dioxin is getting into the atmosphere,
it’s getting into the food chain

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and it’s building up in our bodies.

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[music]

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I couldn’t speak for my father but given everything I’d
learned, it seemed unlikely, I’d ever be able to look at

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our neighborhood in quite
the same way again.

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This house has aluminum which is molded,

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so look like shakes. Right. But it’s not.
What about this?

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I don’t know what the house it is.
It’s vinyl. It probably is, you know,

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okay, yeah, I can do it from here. Don’t
touch this house, dad, they’re inside.

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I’m gonna walk over and touch it.

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Vinyl, wood, aluminum.

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I think that’s asbestos, dad. Yes, that is.
And don’t touch it. Yeah, what about them?

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That’s wood. That was put on last year.

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That’s wood? Yeah. No. That’s wood.
My father was admiring your wood.

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My wood of…? The house.
It’s not wood, it vinyl.

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It’s what? I think, I think.
Touch it, you’ll figure it out.

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No, that was wood. No. We
don’t put it up (inaudible).

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You… Okay. Vinyl dirty, it looks great.
Flimsy yes, but…

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Dad, dad, we didn’t do it. It’s okay.
It’s okay. It’s all right.

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Dad, this whole neighborhood is
gonna be a little upset with us.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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Billy Baggett is a Lake Charles attorney
who represents final chloride workers

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with health-related claims.
So much stuff in my car.

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Because he’s a lawyer, he has a legal
right to document his client’s workplace.

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But he’s only allowed one plant visit for
client so he tries to make the most of it.

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Hey, Judith, just give me a hand. Okay, so you
just wanted to get into a plant and shoot

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where… where the exposed workers
and the sick workers had been and

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it wasn’t enough just to go in with a regular video
camera. Well, yeah, because one of the reasons

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
that you do these inspections is you want to be
able to go back with the worker, we can move around

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
inside the PVC plant based on spatial coordinates.
Pretend this, it was just one camera.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
If I was to do this, I could take in

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
360˚, okay? Now the way it’s written now,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
I don’t have to do that. I can just
stand here, and I’ve got 360 degrees.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
And I can just walk, you
know, like, so the effect of

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
moving through here is very much
like flying through the plant.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
This would be a pretty boring
walk, so it’s probably better

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
walk back and forth.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
Do you think the people in town of
any clue what went on a faster way?

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
No. I don’t.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
[music]

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
When Billy Baggett assembles his footage,
he creates a complete panorama of

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
the plant. That way his clients can
show him exactly where they worked,

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
and he could see how they might have been exposed
to vinyl chloride, the building block of PVC.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:13.000
[music]

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
My husband worked with vinyl every day. When
he first went to work out there, he was like,

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
uh… they call him a pumper
loader and from that

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
you work your way up. And he was
chief operator when he died.

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
I would have liked to have had the
people responsible in my house

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
and watch him die one piece at a
time because I remember all of it.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
When he couldn’t use his right arm anymore,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
when he couldn’t use his left arm
anymore, when he couldn’t use his legs,

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
and when he couldn’t speak to me anymore…

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:08.000
[sil.]

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
When I couldn’t hear his voice anymore.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
[music]

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
I could never say that I knew anything.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
I could only say that there
was one document that we had.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
It had her hand written on
across the side of the paper

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
exceeds short-time exposure do not include
on Wire de Houston(ph). And I wondered why.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
I took that to Billy.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
This is what started the ball rolling out. I
mean… For me it was. Well, it was substantiated,

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
it sure raised it down in my mind. Uh… uh…
I’ll say that when you, when you get something

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
that has this inexplicable uh… a
little comment, do not include on

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
Wire de Houston that did
excite our attention.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
Two little lines, exceeds
short-term exposure

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
and do not include on Wire de Houston.
Billy didn’t know what that meant

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
but it made him suspicious. So he subpoenaed
that company and in addition to the

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
32 boxes of documents he got back was a copy
of that report with the two little lines.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
Only now they would white it out.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
So there were more subpoenas and more
documents, millions of pages of documents,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
and that little bit of
whiteout started to look like

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
a really big cover-up.

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
A case like this doesn’t come
along to most lawyers very often,

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
maybe once in a lifetime, what’s every hundred and
hundred lifetimes where you really have the opportunity

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
maybe to do something that…
that can make a difference.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
I might be making more money
out working Benzene cases.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
I might be doing better
in auto accident cases.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
Uh… As it is, I feel like, I have some
sort of secret hermetic knowledge.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
[sil.]

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
Here is my original, they call
it manifesto. Now you know

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
that that’s somebody naming it besides me because I would
never have called it a manifesto. What would you call it?

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
I don’t know what I would call it, I would have
called it \"plaintiffs’ first disclosure of facts

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
supporting a plaintiffs’ uh…
conspiracy allegations.\" Against?

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
In fact, that is what I called it. I called it plaintiffs’ first
disclosure of facts supporting a plaintiffs’ conspiracy claims.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
Conspiracy claims about? Vinyl chloride.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
These are documents that are… Billy has come to
believe that the International Vinyl Industry

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
knew their employees might get
cancer just by coming to work

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
and that they acted together to hide the
truth. Now every time he represents

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
an individual client for the
PVC related claim, he attaches

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
the conspiracy allegations which means
that 32 separate PVC manufacturers

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
are implicated in each and every suit.
Oh, let’s… let’s just start here.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
Here this way it is… If it had not
been for Billy Baggett’s persistence

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
in getting these documents from industry, the
story of vinyl would never have been told.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
This is where David Rosner
and Jerry Markowitz came in,

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
PhDs in the history of workplace
toxins, writing partners,

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
former brothers-in-law. They were hired
by a law firm that was interested

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
in joining Billy ‘s case, but wanted to
first make sure his allegations bind crazy.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
So when you read these documents,
what were you thinking?

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
This seems to be criminal activity.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
This seems to be putting a lot of people at
risk. And this seems to be extraordinarily

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
umm… immoral. So we kind of
kept looking at each other.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
Did you see this? Can you?
They couldn’t have done that.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
And then we’d find
confirmation what they did.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
Billy’s archive is the most extensive collection
of internal chemical industry documents anywhere,

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
and it attracts a lot of visitors. There
have been investigative journalists,

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
other lawyers, even an officer from
the High Court in Venice, Italy.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
He showed up with an Italian
epidemiologist, a US Marshal on a subpoena

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
spent a solid week xeroxing, then turned
around and went straight back to Venice.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:58.000
[music]

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
Vinyl is not exactly the first thing

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
that leaps to mind when most people think
of Venice. But Billy’s documents led me

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
straight to one of the largest PVC manufacturers
in Europe, the Anakim Corporation.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
And to a group of former workers and widows,
just like, Dan and Elaine Ross in Louisiana.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
[music]

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:50.000
[non-English narration]

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
[non-English narration]

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:25.000
[non-English narration]
This was the ceremony…

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
Did he know he was sick then? No. No, no.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:40.000
They… they don’t know at that moment, they don’t
know that they were sick. No, no, no, no…

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:05.000
[music]

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:45.000
[sil.]

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:28.000
[sil.]

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
Ampelio worked in a vinyl chloride
plant in the early 1970s.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
Around the same time in a laboratory
30 miles away, Dr. Cesar Maltoni

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
was conducting an industry-sponsored study to
determine the effects of vinyl chloride exposure

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
on lab animals. I got to spend
some time with Dr. Maltoni.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
And he went out of his way to make sure
I got the story straight. So were you

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
doing this research before the chemical
companies hired you to do the research

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
and they came to you and said, \"Okay, now we’ll fund you?\" If
you want a like, you must say to me what story you want to.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
Uh… Different stories. If you start from the beginning
because this thought doesn’t go anymore. It doesn’t? No.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
That’s two different stories, but you would do, were you doing this
research first? You… you would, you would be like, why you started exactly.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
Uh… Or not? What do you wanna? What
story do you want to tell you? Okay.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
But we’ve to because they are filming, I am a happy
never to live piece of film, I cannot control.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
I’d like to say do the story all
consequent. Okay, you mean one piece

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
each… each piece at a time. Yes. Okay, as long
as you just can help me understand, I’ll…

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
So you may ask to me directly,
\"Why did you start that

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
your vinyl apparatuses?\" And the answer
why you started. Okay. When and why,

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
why and when I started it, we didn’t sense it all. And then you
may stop me to say why the lesson of al-quran(ph) was important.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
And they will tell it why it was important.
What message does this lesson convey,

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
and they tell you the messages in this Conway. Those are
further questions. So if you need to say, \"Is this I think?\"

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:05.000
I will tell you the story.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:25.000
So all the tumors are in these boxes.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
The rats got cancerous tumors
from vinyl chloride exposures

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
as low as 250 parts per million.
Meanwhile, in Italy and the US,

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
it was legal for vinyl chloride
workers to be exposed to as much as

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
twice that amount.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:25.000
The European vinyl industry was not too happy with Dr. Maltoni’s
results. And they decided to keep his research secret.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
In 1972, the European vinyl industry
agreed to share Maltoni’s results

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
for their US counterparts on the condition that the
Americans first sign a formal secrecy agreement

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
swearing not to reveal the dangers of
vinyl chloride exposure to anyone.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
What they’re actually signing was a
document to keep information private

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
and to keep information about disease private. Was
the Americans idea to have a secrecy agreement?

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
No, no, with the Europeans idea
to have a secrecy agreement,

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
but the Americans agreed to it. They’re essentially
conspiring among each other not to tell

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
about something that they
all know is uh… a problem.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
And they do it for because they’re a
club, because they’re an industry that

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
sees… sees their own self-interest as being
more important than the public interest.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
[music]

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
vinyl chloride would be released just in
the normal course of loading operations

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
with no precautions taken
whatsoever, no signs, it… it…

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
it is your nightmare scenario
of a concealed toxic hazard.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
Uh… The industry needed
to buy time for vinyl.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
Vinyl was a new product.
Then bad news from Italy,

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
if not properly handled,
could have potentially

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
made people think twice about
turning everything into plastic.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
Meanwhile women may have been spraying
their hair with vinyl chloride.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
As early as 1969,

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
some of the manufacturers
recognized that women

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
using hairspray on a regular
basis were exposed at levels

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
higher than your average industrial worker.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
The industry was aware of the
unlimited potential liability.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
If millions of women

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
not to mention their hairdressers had known that
the propellant and hairspray was carcinogenic,

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
they would have put the vinyl
chloride industry out of business.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
So the industry kept that a secret too.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
But then something happened
that they couldn’t really hide.

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
Between 1968 and 1974, four workers
in one vinyl chloride plant

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
in Louisville, Kentucky, all died
of angiosarcoma of the liver,

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
the same extremely rare cancer that Dr.
Maltoni had found in his lab rats.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
The industry was finally forced to admit

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
that there was a direct link between
vinyl chloride exposure and cancer.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
In response, the chemical
workers unions demanded

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
that the government drastically reduce
exposure levels, and a limit was

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
finally set at one part per million.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
As for the millions of women who were being exposed
every time they did their hair, industry never made

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
any public announcement. They just quietly
took the vinyl chloride out of hair spray.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
There’s no way of knowing how many
people might have gotten sick.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
If you asked any trade association

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
involved with vinyl chloride today,
what the risks of angiosarcoma are?

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
You’re going to be told
that it’s a result of

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
excessive exposures years ago, far away that
have nothing to do with today’s population

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
that workers who entered this…
this is, this is like, gospel.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
Workers who entered the
workforce after 1974

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
when the new laws went into effect, oh, none
of those guys have gotten angiosarcoma.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
To this point, the only vinyl workers

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
I knew anything about were resin workers,
the ones who convert raw vinyl chloride,

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
a gas into polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
The industry insists that this is the only
time in the PVC manufacturing process

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
when there is any risk of
vinyl chloride exposure

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
so most of the health studies have
focused on the resin workers.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
Once the vinyl chloride
gas is converted into

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
these PVC pellets, fabricators take over.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
Their job is to turn the pellets
into consumer products.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
In the process, the pellets usually get
heated up and small amounts of vinyl chloride

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
can sometimes be released.

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
But the industry still maintains
that fabricators are at no risk.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
The thing is, there are many more
fabricators than resin workers,

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
literally millions worldwide.
And some studies have suggested

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
that they may have an increased risk for
certain cancers and other diseases.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
But the vinyl industry maintains that they
know of no cases of vinyl chloride related

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
angiosarcoma and fabricators. So
there’s no need to study them further.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
I would have liked to believe
that a fabricators somewhere

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
made our vinyl siding, but then I heard
about Michael Wayne Cox who started working

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
as a fabricator in 1978, four years
after the government drastically

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
reduced exposure limits to vinyl chloride.
He was diagnosed with

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
angiosarcoma of the liver in
1986 right before he died,

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
he was 30. Later, his wife filed a suit.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
And though the industry paid her a
generous settlement, they assured her that

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
since Michael was a fabricator and therefore
at no risk for vinyl chloride exposure.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
His angiosarcoma must have
been caused by something else.

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
[sil.]

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
Dr. Paul Brandt-Rauf has
a very different opinion

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
about the health risks for PVC
workers like Michael Wayne Cox.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
He’s conducting gene studies and people working
at the current maximum exposure levels and below.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
And his found mutations that suggest
what the vinyl industry considers safe

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
just might not be. Hello. Can
you see that right there?

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
Yeah. What… what this is… is blood
samples from vinyl chloride workers.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
Here’s a worker who has this particular band which corresponds
to the same molecule that we see inside this tumor.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
So our suspicion is that if you have these
mutations, you have a much higher risk of

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
going on to get tumors. So
therefore it is, it is worrisome

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
that individuals exposed below the current exposure
limit have evidence of these mutations in their body.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
But these workers don’t have
tumors yet, right? That’s right.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
This study started over 17 years
ago, but the results are clear.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
While they appear healthy, workers who exposed
after 1974 have the mutations that are identical

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
to the mutations we would find if they
did develop angiosarcoma of the liver.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
Based on our research, it seems to me there’s a need for a
study of all PVC workers working at the current exposures

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
and re-examination of the one
part per million safety limit.

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
So can you just tell me when
is vinyl chloride safe?

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
What gets better? There is no safe level. Can you talk
about that a little? There is no zero risk level.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
The only zero risk level is zero exposure, okay? And
you, you’re never gonna get down to zero exposure.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
If you’re gonna be making vinyl chloride, there’s
always gonna be some residual exposure somewhere

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
even if it’s parts per trillion or parts per quadrant which we can
measure nowadays. I mean, we can measure vanishing these small numbers.

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
But for every molecule of vinyl chloride present, there is some residual
risk that molecule will get into somebody’s body and cause the cancer.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
So if you’ve got a molecule
present, you got a risk.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:53.000
[music]

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
As a kid, I have to admit that I thought

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
that the plants were beautiful.
I guess, it would be,

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
you know, in the eye of the beholder but I mean, I
think that they definitely look better at night.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
I mean, look at that, that’s
just, it’s just beautiful.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
We’d be driving back a lot of times late at
night. And I always know when I saw that torch

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
getting close to home, it reminded me of

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
the way the Emerald City
looked in The Wizard of Oz

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
which used to come on every year. And there would be the scene
right before they cross the field that pop east, that ray,

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
you’d see this glistening sort of
Jetsons looking future sort of City.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
[sil.]

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
And what I’m gonna say that I’m deliberately putting
my kids at risk by living in this community.

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
I don’t have any reason to think that

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
we’re not gonna pay the price, but
I gotta admit that I don’t give,

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
I don’t, I don’t sit, I wake nights
thinking about moving to Aspen.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:33.000
[sil.]

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
This is the test of the Michael public emergency
warning system. This is only day care.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:48.000
[sil.]

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
If there’s a big industrial explosion or a
toxic spill, and people nearby gets sick.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
It’s usually not hard to identify what
they’ve been exposed to or who’s at fault.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
But with the day-to-day chemical releases,

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
it takes a little more
ingenuity to connect the dots.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:18.000
[sil.]

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
All we want to know is, what we’re breathing? What
the hell’s in the air? So we develop these buckets.

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
Sniffers are very important
part of the bucket brigade

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
because what they are is the early warning system. And you
need a lot of those spreads throughout the neighborhood.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
Aren’t you… Yes. Now do I set
the bucket on the ground?

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
Do I hold it up in the air? Or what?

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
There you go.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:58.000
[music]

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
And would do a quick thing.

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
Oh, man, that fat. Oh. That fat bags aware.
That’s… that’s your lung right there. Okay.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
Hey, hey, you all need to leave. You’re
on the private property. You have to go.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
It’s not a private property, sir. We’re not there,
I mean, the fence line is the private property.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
[music]

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
I think you need to get from out of here.
We’re just taking an air sample,

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
there’s nothing wrong with that.
(inaudible). (inaudible).

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
Oh, yeah, we got it. Let’s go.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:58.000
[music]

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
This is the perfect size for your
experiments. Exactly three minutes.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
Wonderful, let me put it in there. For weeks on end, the
bucket brigades collected air samples all over town.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
That’s all the way. Okay. Of course, I was most
interested in the one taken across from the

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
vinyl chloride plant. Put it in a box. Okay, now what
is this? Right, it fits in there. Just perfect. Yeah.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
Yeah, when you come through security
screening, you should always be able to

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
show me what’s in the pack.
Okay, that’s it.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:38.000
[music]

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
So I signed a custody agreement

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
with the local activists swearing
I wouldn’t tamper with the air

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
and personally escorted one bag to a lab
in Burbank, California for analysis.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
[sil.]

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
I brought the results
to chemist Wilma Subra,

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
1999 winner of the MacArthur Genius award. She
works out of a trailer in New Iberia, Louisiana

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
and spends a lot of her time interpreting
this kind of data for community groups

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
all over the state. I know at the lab, they said,
this was a huge amount of chloride. Right.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
Vinyl chloride, yes, yes, in the air, in
the community, that yes, it’s 10 times

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
the ambient air quality. It is a huge
amount. It’s getting into the air that was

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
collected from these peoples, yours. So… so the
production of the raw vinyl, the kind they’ve used in

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
vinyl plant is not contained. Correct,
it’s moving off-site into the community

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
where people live and that air has

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
vinyl chloride in it and a large
number of other chemicals as well.

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:58.000
[sil.]

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
Shoot sediment and water contact,

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
you should call that number right now, 478-6020.
I’ll give you the phone, you can call.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
Water contact, I thought it was just fish
consumption. Who am I speaking with?

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
No, no, I’m at Bayou Dam right now, and uh…
umm… I just saw the sign about water uh…

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
contamination and sediment contamination.
So contact with the water

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
itself is dangerous? Oh, yes.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
Okay, so I’m… I’m curious as
to what it will do to you

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
if… if you do have contact with the water.
And why there’s only one bad sign.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
[sil.]

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
Oh, I called the wrong number. Okay,
well, I’m on a boat at Bayou Dam.

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
I’m on a boat. Who are you
gonna connect me with?

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
Kathleen, I’m out at Bayou Dam. And it’s
just water and sediment contamination,

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
does that mean that contact with the water is
dangerous? You think it means don’t eat the fish

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
because there’s fishermen
fishing in this area.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
You say, \"Don’t catch the fish.\" What about the fish that swim
in and eat the sediment and then swim out into the lakes?

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
So… so all this estuary is polluted
pretty much, you shouldn’t eat them.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
Who are you gonna connect me with?

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
[sil.]

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
Water contamination isn’t just a problem

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
for swimmers and fishermen. A long-term
leak from one vinyl chloride plant

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
actually poison the groundwater in
Mossville, making it the latest of

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
several African American communities to
be forced out by chemical contamination.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
Some families like the (inaudible)
decided to take their houses with them.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
[sil.]

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
The plant offered to buy the residents out. In
exchange, they had to sign an agreement promising

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
and if they ever developed health problems
linked to groundwater contamination,

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
they would not file suit
against the company.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:23.000
[music]

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
Let’s put it in middle. Uh…
Let’s put it in the middle.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
That’ll be good enough.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
For my parents, the vinyl siding

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
was all about affordability and convenience.
They didn’t know anything about

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
contaminated groundwater for
fabricators or angiosarcoma.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
Like my father said, none of
that was written on the box.

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
And to be fair, the box was
all my parents had to go on.

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
Back home in Mirek, most
of the dangers of vinyl

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
are hard to see and easy to ignore.
But there’s an old Yiddish saying,

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
\"If your neighbor’s house is on
fire, you’re also not safe.\"

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
In other words, if Lake Charles and
Mossville are in trouble, so are we?

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
[sil.]

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
What if we found an
alternative to the vinyl?

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
This is hypothetical. If we found
an alternative that had less risks

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
associated with it, then PVC vinyl siding
which is on the outside of our house,

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
we could take the vinyl off and we could make
a point. One family could make one point

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
even if it was somewhat symbolic us to
make a point that you have that a company

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
that… that… that not just companies,
but consumers and companies together

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
have to be responsible for the whole lifecycle
of a product. Because if this brands,

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
it’s bad for Toronto, it’s bad for Bayview
Avenue. Oh, Judith Helfand is trying to indicate

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
is not the final product, the final
vinyl product may be safe, indeed.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
You know what Dad… But
the process to produce

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
that product may not be safe.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
Yeah. Judith is saying the disposal of…
of the vinyl products is what causing,

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
is what’s causing all these problems. Both,
both. The production and the disposal.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
Right, but you didn’t really know that when
you put it on the outside of the house.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
No, I didn’t. And if you had? I
might have still overlook. Why?

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
Because the vinyl resists denting,

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
it has various advantages.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
So you’re so happy with it? Yes. Even after
you’ve been hearing me talking about this,

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
after knowing for the last three years. Even after
that. Because I still think that the final product.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
Dad? If the siding… Yeah. Vinyl siding… Yeah.
That’s on our home. Right. Were removed then…

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
Right. A substitute material was installed.
Yeah. At no cost. To you?

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
At no cost to me. Okay.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
What would happen to that vinyl siding that has
been removed? How would you dispose of that?

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
Well, that’s a really good question, and I’ve been
thinking about it. What we’ve been thinking about

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
actually… Truth was I hadn’t
figured that out yet.

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
I had already called every East Coast facility on the
Vinyl Institute’s list of official PVC recyclers,

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
but most said, “Are you siding as
more trouble than it was worth?”

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
If we could find an alternative that
has less risk associated with it

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
than polyvinyl chloride, and we will go

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.999
out of our way to make sure that the vinyl that we take off
the house does not get burned. And we could sell the house.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.999
And there you wouldn’t even have to talk about
the vinyl with any of your prospective buyers.

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
We don’t talk about it. They see it, so you don’t talk about. But you have noted
on that. We don’t talk about. We haven’t put it on the market yet, have you?

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.999
No, not yet. We could put it on.
We would take this off,

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.999
it would be cutting edge, dad. Are
you sure? Maybe it is in California.

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.999
Maybe in California.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:54.999
[music]

00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:59.999
I know she didn’t mean to, but my mother

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.999
had sent me to one of the only places in the
country where my obsession with non-toxic

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.999
building materials
actually blended right in.

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.999
[music]

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:19.999
What’s that? Hemp. Hemp?

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:24.999
You’re not surprised to find hemp part here,
are you? No, what happens if that burns?

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:29.999
It’s great for the whole community. There
you go, people will be happy. Party board.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:34.999
Stuck out. Whole house is clay.
Yeah. You heard a ram dirt?

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.999
No. They use either foam for rostra
blocks they call it, 10 inch blocks.

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:44.999
And they shoot Earth branches worth
of Earth on the exterior for siding.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:49.999
You never heard that? Could we do
that in Long Island? I don’t know.

00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:58.000
[music]

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:29.999
I was told this was gonna be a straw house?
Well, yeah, but we got to protect it somehow.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:34.999
This is straw inside of here,

00:57:35.000 --> 00:57:39.999
it’s like a stucco, this is an earthen plaster, a
little bit of cement, some lime that’s hardened,

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:44.999
lots of sand, and then natural pigments
that make the exterior color go on here.

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:49.999
And behind this is straw.

00:57:50.000 --> 00:57:54.999
Well, there’s a long way for
my problem, my private.

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:59.999
Oh, this is what your parents just recited
they’re. Not just about five years ago.

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:04.999
Do you visit him? He’s my father. You don’t
say, meet me out for coffee someplace else.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.999
You wouldn’t go in. No. You wouldn’t even sleep in
a house that had vinyl in it. Push comes to shove,

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:14.999
sure I might sleep in it. I… I choose
not to. I would come out to New York

00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:19.999
and help your parents find an alternative
and come up with a reasonable solution

00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.999
to making their home safe for them, and for
the neighbors, and for everything around us.

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:29.999
It’s deal. Okay.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:34.999
I had confidence that Patrick would find an
alternative mostly because I hadn’t seen

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:39.999
a single house side of a vinyl since
I’d set foot in Marin County.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:44.999
But whatever he came up with, it seemed
unlikely I’d be able to buy it at Home Depot.

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:49.999
What vinyl has going for it is that
it’s cheap. And it’s cheap because

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:54.999
the real cost to people’s health and the
planet is in factored into the price.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:58:59.999
If it were, it wouldn’t be so cheap.
But if you can’t afford

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:04.999
a house in the first place environmentally correct
siding, it’s just not going to be your top priority.

00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:09.999
[sil.]

00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:14.999
As the lead corporate sponsors

00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:19.999
for Habitat for Humanity, the Vinyl
Institute in the Chlorine Chemistry Council

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.999
donate millions of dollars in materials and
labor each year to build homes for people

00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:29.999
who otherwise couldn’t afford them.

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:34.999
When you take a look at all the vinyl
products that are gonna be in this house,

00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:39.999
starts with pipe and plumbing, an electrical
boxes, an electrical wiring, and window frames,

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:44.999
and siding, flooring.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:49.999
When you think about it, there’s a lot of vinyl is combining all of
these houses. I’m sure they’ll have heck of a lot in those maintenance.

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:54.999
And I think this house will
look good for many, many years.

00:59:55.000 --> 00:59:59.999
What’s your house made of? Wood.

01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:04.999
The new products unveiled

01:00:05.000 --> 01:00:09.999
at this year’s Easter build
for the all vinyl house.

01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:14.999
And the all vinyl shed, which
they promised to be put together

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:19.999
in 20 minutes flat.

01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:24.999
So even I can put something like this
together. Built tough but not tough to build.

01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:33.000
[music]

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:44.999
I never imagined this many people would
be here to help me build my home.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:49.999
I thought, oh, I don’t know what to say.

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:54.999
I just thank all, you, for
coming and helping me.

01:00:55.000 --> 01:00:59.999
All right, count three, one,
two, three, (inaudible).

01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:04.999
[music]

01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:09.999
I had a lot of questions for the Vinyl
Institute but I didn’t ask them.

01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:14.999
After all, at the end of these five days of
construction, 25 families were going to move

01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:19.999
into their own homes. We just got for the joy
of the stay, house that is home. Let us pray.

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:24.999
It wasn’t exactly the right time to bring
up dioxin or angiosarcoma of the liver.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:29.999
So I went back to New York

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:34.999
and called the Vinyl Institute hoping to
set up a more formal on-camera interview.

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:39.999
We definitely want to come. It’s not
quite clear whether we can bring,

01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:44.999
you know, did you decide whether your… your…
your lawyer is coming with you for sure.

01:01:45.000 --> 01:01:49.999
Before they would even consider being on
camera, they wanted to get a comfort level.

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.999
So I suggested meeting for lunch in New
York at a little place on 54th an Ave

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:59.999
called the vinyl diner. Just in
case this was our only meeting,

01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:04.999
I hired a paparazzi photographer and
planted him in a truck across the street.

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:09.999
Over lunch, I mostly answer their questions

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:14.999
and tried to work in a few of my own.
At one point, I brought up dioxin.

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:19.999
One of them held up two sugar packets and assured
me that those eight little grams of sweetener

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.999
represented all the dioxin released
in PVC production each year.

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:29.999
I should have had to come back for that
but I didn’t. So when they finally

01:02:30.000 --> 01:02:34.999
agreed to an on-camera interview, I started
to worry that maybe I was in over my head.

01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:39.999
So I focused on working out
logistics for the interview.

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:44.999
[music]

01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.999
We wanted a tour of a vinyl plant. They
suggested a Habitat for Humanity house instead.

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:54.999
We countered with the location
in the middle of Lake Charles

01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:59.999
in front of a fountain donated by a local PVC
manufacturer but they had problems with that too.

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:04.999
Finally we just left it up to them, and they
chose to hold the interview in Baton Rouge,

01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:09.999
in the heart of an area in
Louisiana known as Cancer Alley,

01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:14.999
in a hotel at the intersection
of corporate and trust.

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:19.999
The night before the interview,

01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:24.999
I had what you might call a crisis of
confidence. I’ve been cramming for weeks,

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:29.999
but I was going up against a guy with a PhD in
chemistry who had been working for the vinyl industry

01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:34.999
for the last 22 years. I
needed a coach so I called

01:03:35.000 --> 01:03:39.999
Monique Hardin, an environmental lawyer who had a
lot of experience dealing with the Vinyl Institute.

01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:44.999
So anyway, I wanna just practice, okay.
Right. Okay, all right, between 1972 and 1974

01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:49.999
from whatever everything that
I understand umm… you know,

01:03:50.000 --> 01:03:54.999
if Dr. Cesar Maltoni was doing these
studies, I’m in trouble. The dioxin levels

01:03:55.000 --> 01:03:59.999
and the blood of Mossville residents is significantly
high. Do you think it’s crazy for someone like me

01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:04.999
to be going head-to-head with them tomorrow? I think a
good strategy overall is how you order your questions.

01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:09.999
There are people who are very, very,
very sick who live in Mossville,

01:04:10.000 --> 01:04:14.999
all across the street from the facilities
that you represent here in Louisiana.

01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:19.999
Now must we wait until
their illness is directly

01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:24.999
correlated to your emissions, or do
we try to address your emissions now

01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:29.999
before everybody’s dead? How am I doing?
You’re… you’re not doing very well.

01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:34.999
Okay, so… Black skirt and red tops, of
course I have a bias in favor of that.

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:39.999
All right, welcome. The
vinyl Institute had agreed

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.999
to the interview with the
following ground rules. No props,

01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:49.999
which meant no sugar packets, no salt, and
there were my question about sex toys.

01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:54.999
No surprise documents were videotapes,

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:59.999
no questions outside the
expertise of their expert,

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:04.999
and no more than 30 minutes for the whole thing. I
was told to leave my blue vinyl siding at home.

01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:09.999
[music]

01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:14.999
We decided to shoot the interview
like a typical magazine format show.

01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:19.999
One camera on the interviewer, one on
the interviewee, then they told us

01:05:20.000 --> 01:05:24.999
they wanted to film us too. So we brought an extra
camera so we could film them filming us filming them.

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:29.999
Are we rolling? Yeah.
Yeah, okay, all right.

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:34.999
So it’s a chemical fact that when PVC burns,
it can create dioxin, one of the most

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.999
carcinogenic substances ever generated. The interview went more
or less like I expected. I asked my pre-approved questions,

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:44.999
and he did his job really well in fact.

01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:49.999
Almost any fuel that you can imagine, you
will make some dioxin. Dioxin is a material

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.999
that has both natural and
man-made sources. Umm…

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:59.999
They’re finding dioxin in clays that
were laid down 45 million years ago.

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:04.999
It’s all around us. It’s not a good
chemical. And the good news is the dioxin

01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:09.999
emissions to the environment are declining and
have been declining for the last 30 years.

01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:14.999
In 1972, a European study by Dr. Maltoni
concluded that exposure to vinyl chloride

01:06:15.000 --> 01:06:19.999
was causing angiosarcoma of the liver
in laboratory animals. Two years later,

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:24.999
B.F. Goodrich vinyl chloride workers were
reported dead from the same disease.

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:29.999
Was the vinyl industry aware of Dr. Maltoni’s
findings prior to B.F. Goodrich’s alarming news?

01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:34.999
I don’t know the answer to that. Umm… Since
I wasn’t in the industry in those days,

01:06:35.000 --> 01:06:39.999
I don’t know who knew what and in those days. But what I can
tell you is, it was a very short time before they reported

01:06:40.000 --> 01:06:44.999
the Maltoni study to the government, and
before actions started that eventually

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:49.999
changed emissions and exposure to… to VCM.
Those people were exposed to very high levels

01:06:50.000 --> 01:06:54.999
under technology that is obviously obsolete
today. It is well known that the association of

01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.999
angiosarcoma of the liver is with very high exposures
to vinyl chloride, not with low exposures.

01:07:00.000 --> 01:07:04.999
What about the fabricators, the people who fabricate
vinyl siding, the siding on my parents house,

01:07:05.000 --> 01:07:09.999
the PVC pipes in their bathroom? When
these fabricators, when their operations

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:14.999
are analyzed for vinyl chloride, you find none.
None, not even 1 ppm? Not even 1 ppm. None.

01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:19.999
So are the fabricators being studied? The
fabricators aren’t being studied themselves,

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:24.999
but we have done studies in their
facilities to analyze for whether there’s

01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:29.999
vinyl chloride there. And you don’t find any. So that’s the
study that you, guys, could give us if we wanted to look at it.

01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:34.999
It’s been done a number of years ago. It’s clear that
the fabricators are not at risk. No, I have umm…

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:39.999
seen documentation that there are some fabricators that actually
have had umm… angiosarcoma of the liver and are not dead.

01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:44.999
I think you’d have to show me the study because
I’m unaware of that. Well, it’s not a study.

01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:49.999
It’s a death report point. You know, those
reports that people get after they’re dead.

01:07:50.000 --> 01:07:54.999
I’m sorry. I’d have to see what
you’re referring to. Okay.

01:07:55.000 --> 01:07:59.999
Umm… If you’re ready, if you ask
your last question will be,

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.999
you’re already past 30 minutes. Should I ask
another one or not? Ask your last question.

01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:09.999
Umm… We think there are
complications to recycling PVC.

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.999
Is there a chance that that’s why major companies
like IKEA, General Motors, Nike, Mattel,

01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:19.999
Honda are phasing PVC out of their product lines such as
furniture, cars, sneakers, IV bags, and Barbie dolls?

01:08:20.000 --> 01:08:24.999
PVC is… is a good product. PVC is
used in a number of different areas.

01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:29.999
People choose materials for… We don’t have time. Okay.
We actually, I’m trying to interrupt that we have

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:34.999
very limited time and it’s about to be
over, so why… why did those companies

01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:39.999
make those choices, please tell us? Companies make
choices about materials all the time. They choose PVC.

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:44.999
They choose other materials. It seems that the only time that we hear
news about it is when they’ve chosen to use something other than PVC,

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:49.999
people choose PVC as well.

01:08:50.000 --> 01:08:54.999
I think we’re done.

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:59.999
We’re definitely done. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.

01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:04.999
[sil.]

01:09:05.000 --> 01:09:09.999
30 minutes. 31 minutes probably.
Bill Carol wasn’t scared of me.

01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:14.999
He had no reason to be. So far,
the American vinyl industry

01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:19.999
has been involved in a few civil suits and a
handful of companies have had to pay some fines

01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:24.999
but Bill Carol probably wouldn’t be
so confident if he lived in Venice.

01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.999
[sil.]

01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:34.999
There the government is prosecuting a landmark
case against PVC manufacturers for knowingly

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:39.999
polluting the Venice lagoon and endangering
the health of their employees.

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:44.999
But it isn’t the companies that
have been named in the suit,

01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:49.999
it’s 31 individual vinyl executives. And
they’re each being tried as criminals.

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.999
The charge is manslaughter.

01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:59.999
Who you’re here for? For my father.
My husband.

01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:08.000
He died working in this factory.

01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:14.999
We didn’t think they could let him die.

01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:23.000
[sil.]

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:29.999
Dr. Maltoni was called as
a witness in the trial,

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.999
and he testified that his studies had clearly predicted
the human health effects of vinyl chloride exposure

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:39.999
as early as 1972.

01:10:40.000 --> 01:10:44.999
Since then, over 100 former any
come workers have died, 600 others

01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:49.999
suffer health problems linked
to vinyl chloride exposure.

01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:54.999
And even though the families have already been compensated
financially, they still go to the trial day after day.

01:10:55.000 --> 01:11:03.000
[sil.]

01:11:50.000 --> 01:11:54.999
[music]

01:11:55.000 --> 01:11:59.999
We’re not asking for the electric chair.

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:04.999
But you have to pay for this. You have to take
responsibility for what you did to our husbands.

01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:09.999
Because if what they say
about your actions is true,

01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:14.999
you have to do something.
All our husbands have died.

01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:19.999
150 men.

01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:28.000
[music]

01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:49.999
If the industry knew about its
shortcomings many, many years ago,

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:54.999
why wasn’t it brought? Because they didn’t care.
Because they were interested in only one thing.

01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:59.999
Money. Look at the bottom
line of each year’s sales.

01:13:00.000 --> 01:13:04.999
And as long as you can
keep selling this stuff,

01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:09.999
why take it off the market. My only sorrow
is that I spent the money for the vinyl.

01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:14.999
Had I known this beforehand,
I wouldn’t have brought it.

01:13:15.000 --> 01:13:19.999
[sil.]

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:24.999
My parents were starting to come around, but it was
one thing for them to admit that putting the vinyl

01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:29.999
on the house had been a mistake, taking it
off the house is something else altogether.

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.999
But you believe in what we’re doing, right?

01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:39.999
Yes, you’re trying to save the environment.
Yes, I believe in that.

01:13:40.000 --> 01:13:44.999
We know what you’re telling us now

01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:49.999
we never would have put it up. And I’m sure
people all around this wouldn’t be using

01:13:50.000 --> 01:13:54.999
any of this. So that’s the point. It’s
not like we’re people who’ve never been

01:13:55.000 --> 01:13:59.999
hurt before it by toxics and chemicals.
We’re the perfect family

01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:04.999
to take the vinyl off the house.
Bring me the materials,

01:14:05.000 --> 01:14:09.999
show it to me.

01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:14.999
Either my mother was getting it where she
just wanted me to go away. In any case,

01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:19.999
I was ready. I’d already done a little thinking
about materials, and I had set my parameters.

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:24.999
I wanted something that could be recycled,

01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:29.999
that would never hurt anybody at any stage of its life
cycle and that the average consumer could afford.

01:14:30.000 --> 01:14:38.000
[music]

01:14:50.000 --> 01:14:54.999
This is flat. This is cold.
This is not personal.

01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:59.999
And for me, that’s a, that’s an
important aspect of a home is…

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:04.999
is that hand appeal and
old-world craftsmanship

01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:09.999
means something to me and hand finishes.
Although they can be more expensive,

01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:14.999
they… they embody the building
with a different spirit

01:15:15.000 --> 01:15:19.999
and that, that’s something that’s important
to me is that a living space has spirit,

01:15:20.000 --> 01:15:24.999
it has soul at some place, it’s
special that you want to be.

01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:29.999
Look up, that’s beautiful.

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:34.999
That’s not the issue that I have in mind.

01:15:35.000 --> 01:15:39.999
We have to sell this place, Judith. I know.
But Mobley’s stucco on it.

01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:44.999
Yeah. And this house. Yeah. Is not gonna sell. Are
you kidding? No, I’m not kidding. What if we ask

01:15:45.000 --> 01:15:49.999
just for the hell of it, just what if we have something, could
we ask somebody? Cuz it’s gonna look like a little adobe hut.

01:15:50.000 --> 01:15:54.999
Well, I was thinking that the… the
coral-red would be beautiful.

01:15:55.000 --> 01:15:59.999
It doesn’t go in this neighborhood. Mom, there’s a, it is, there a
stucco everywhere. But this style, this stucco house is a different,

01:16:00.000 --> 01:16:04.999
different style. And this is gonna look
like a little adobe hut. You think.

01:16:05.000 --> 01:16:09.999
From the outside, yes. Patrick’s
initial consultation with my folks

01:16:10.000 --> 01:16:14.999
was not exactly a success. But he stuck
around for a few days and eventually,

01:16:15.000 --> 01:16:19.999
they wound up to him. If you
can get up on the roof…

01:16:20.000 --> 01:16:24.999
Yeah. The thing that my wife won’t
let me do any longer. Yeah.

01:16:25.000 --> 01:16:29.999
Notice the angle that it’s at right now.
Sure. It’s got to be turned five

01:16:30.000 --> 01:16:34.999
or six degrees backwards. Sure. Just a little
bit. Sure, I just want to do a little rotation.

01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:39.999
It’s just a little rotation. Clockwise. Give me a pair of pliers,
and a couple of screwdrivers, and a ladder, and cut me loose.

01:16:40.000 --> 01:16:44.999
You got it, that’s a deal. Look at that,
here I’m shaking on camera again.

01:16:45.000 --> 01:16:49.999
Where am I gonna end up now?
Tune it for, Big Mama.

01:16:50.000 --> 01:16:54.999
Okay, it’s a very fuzzy, and the
sound isn’t coming in good.

01:16:55.000 --> 01:16:59.999
I’m making the (inaudible).
Much better, pretty good.

01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:04.999
Yeah, this is a good angle. Dad, do you wanna
go take a look and see what you think?

01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:09.999
All right. ‘Coz we’re in a position that they’ve said, \"It’s
good.\" Patrick, you worked yourself one or two beers,

01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:14.999
what should you want? Too better on a
drink but thank you. How about the pizza?

01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:19.999
Pizza would be great, we can
find pizza with that cheese.

01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:24.999
In the end, my mother vetoed
everything Paddy suggested.

01:17:25.000 --> 01:17:29.999
Even the most affordable solutions
either it didn’t suit the house,

01:17:30.000 --> 01:17:34.999
it didn’t go with a neighborhood, or it couldn’t be put on
a time for the High Holidays which were coming up fast.

01:17:35.000 --> 01:17:39.999
The bottom line was
whatever material we chose

01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:44.999
was going to have to look more or less like the
vinyl siding which itself had been embossed

01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:49.999
to look like wood. So I
headed for Upstate New York

01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:54.999
in search of a barn that could be the
future outside of my parents’ house.

01:17:55.000 --> 01:18:03.000
[music]

01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:09.999
You put this on the outside of
your house for me. I would buy,

01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:14.999
I would buy this lumber and use this lumber. Yeah. It’s way
stronger than any wood you can get nowadays, way, way stronger.

01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:23.000
[sil.]

01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:29.999
It’s gonna be hard for
my mother to picture.

01:18:30.000 --> 01:18:34.999
[sil.]

01:18:35.000 --> 01:18:39.999
I’ve done my homework on the
reclaimed wood business,

01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:44.999
and I know all the right questions
to ask including what kind of paint

01:18:45.000 --> 01:18:49.999
had been used on the barn.

01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:54.999
Unfortunately, the answer was led.

01:18:55.000 --> 01:18:59.999
[sil.]

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:04.999
In the midst of this wood crisis,

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:09.999
I did a round of research on environmentally friendly new
plastics that one day could very well replace vinyl.

01:19:10.000 --> 01:19:14.999
But I couldn’t find one that
could be used as house siding.

01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:19.999
Then I learned about sustainably harvested timber
and considered cedar shakes from Eugene, Oregon.

01:19:20.000 --> 01:19:24.999
But they couldn’t be delivered by Rosh
Hashanah. There was also the siding

01:19:25.000 --> 01:19:29.999
milled from petrified trees that had been
dredged up from the bottom of the Great Lakes,

01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:34.999
but trekking it to Merritt
was prohibitively expensive.

01:19:35.000 --> 01:19:39.999
Finally, a reclaimed-wood specialist
in Vermont sold us some lumber

01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:44.999
that had once been the roof of an
old mill in Nashua, New Hampshire.

01:19:45.000 --> 01:19:49.999
It cost a fortune.

01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:58.000
[music]

01:20:05.000 --> 01:20:09.999
It wasn’t until I wrote the check,

01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:14.999
but I’d realized what I’d done.
I’ve been so focused on finding

01:20:15.000 --> 01:20:19.999
a building material that was recyclable. It
didn’t harm anyone at any stage of its lifecycle

01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:24.999
that I had let go of the one thing that
probably mattered most, affordability

01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:29.999
because if my parents had had to
pay for this, they couldn’t have.

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:34.999
I paid for it out of my film
budget which was partly financed

01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:39.999
by the settlement I received because
DES exposure gave me cancer.

01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:44.999
I like to call it, my uterus money.
Of course,

01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:49.999
most middle-class Americans don’t
have uterus money. But since I did,

01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:54.999
I wanted to make a point that consumers
have the power to transform a market

01:20:55.000 --> 01:20:59.999
and make a hazardous product obsolete.
Consider asbestos,

01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:04.999
one of the primary building blocks of
Post-World War-II, America used for everything

01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:09.999
from homes and schools to the pipes
that carried drinking water.

01:21:10.000 --> 01:21:14.999
Like with vinyl, the asbestos industry knew all
along that the manufacturer of their product

01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:19.999
was causing cancer. And they hid the truth.

01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:24.999
It wasn’t until news got out that workers were dying
that consumers realized they too were at risk

01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:29.999
and stopped buying asbestos products.
Liability rose,

01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:34.999
consumer demand fell, and manufacturers
started to devise alternatives.

01:21:35.000 --> 01:21:39.999
So who knows? Maybe the next
great product revolution

01:21:40.000 --> 01:21:44.999
could start with our house.

01:21:45.000 --> 01:21:49.999
He started on this wall, right? He started right here.
That’s great, I can’t believe you’re doing this.

01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:54.999
Looks like it had been done yesterday, right? Yeah,
this is nothing to do with your work, Jerry.

01:21:55.000 --> 01:21:59.999
Oh… This is a side swiper.

01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:04.999
It’s a siding removal tool just
made for taking off vinyl siding.

01:22:05.000 --> 01:22:09.999
That’s all it does.

01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:18.000
[music]

01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:49.999
So that was something that he put in.

01:22:50.000 --> 01:22:54.999
Yeah. And… yeah, there we go.
It’ll be very much like that.

01:22:55.000 --> 01:22:59.999
Very much like that. Yeah. Smell it. It smells
good. Does it have an odor? Yes. It has an odor.

01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:04.999
It’s pretty. Pretty uh…? Yes.

01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:09.999
Mom said, and she has to had a
thing with me today, and I’m…

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:14.999
What? She doesn’t like your siding? I don’t know. I don’t think she
hasn’t looked closely at it. I don’t think she… What… what is it that

01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:19.999
she objects, and she did not object, forbid or something?
She hasn’t looked closely at it. She really hasn’t.

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:24.999
No, she hasn’t come outside. She hasn’t known. She hasn’t
come outside. It’s a protest, it still remind your…

01:23:25.000 --> 01:23:29.999
Mom’s doing a sit in.

01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:34.999
By this point, my mother had had enough.
She hadn’t ever said no

01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:39.999
to take in the vinyl off, but she
never exactly said yes either.

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:44.999
It was my father who pushed for it. He knew
he wouldn’t be able to leave me the house

01:23:45.000 --> 01:23:49.999
since they were planning to sell it. So we
wanted to give me the outside of it now.

01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:54.999
My mother’s only request was that we
keep the house the same shade of blue

01:23:55.000 --> 01:23:59.999
and make sure that the next owners wouldn’t
have to paint it for a really long time.

01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:04.999
So the 100-year old pine was
treated with the least toxic

01:24:05.000 --> 01:24:09.999
blue stain we could find. It was custom
made and special ordered from Canada.

01:24:10.000 --> 01:24:18.000
[music]

01:24:55.000 --> 01:24:59.999
Blue vinyl. All right,

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:04.999
thank you so much, guys. It’s great.

01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:09.999
[sil.]

01:25:10.000 --> 01:25:14.999
By the time we were finished,
my mother had to admit that

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:19.999
the house looked nice, she even liked
the wood. And that product revolution

01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:24.999
I was hoping for, it had already begun.
In fact,

01:25:25.000 --> 01:25:29.999
122 countries including the US
signed an international treaty

01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:34.999
that resolves to phase out 12 of the
world’s most dangerous pollutants,

01:25:35.000 --> 01:25:39.999
a third of which are byproducts
of PVC production and disposal.

01:25:40.000 --> 01:25:44.999
So if 122 countries have a problem
with vinyl, I have to believe

01:25:45.000 --> 01:25:49.999
it’s just a matter of time before the vinyl
industry has some serious problems of their own.

01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:54.999
My problem was what to do
with the 2,000 square feet of

01:25:55.000 --> 01:25:59.999
used vinyl siding in the
u-haul in front of our house.

01:26:00.000 --> 01:26:04.999
[sil.]

01:26:05.000 --> 01:26:09.999
Dad? Yes. Say, goodbye vinyl.
Goodbye vinyl.

01:26:10.000 --> 01:26:18.000
[sil.]

01:26:35.000 --> 01:26:43.000
[music]

01:27:20.000 --> 01:27:28.000
[music]

01:28:05.000 --> 01:28:09.999
It’s another one.

01:28:10.000 --> 01:28:14.999
Hey, another one.

01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:20.000
[music]

01:28:25.000 --> 01:28:33.000
[music]

01:29:10.000 --> 01:29:15.000
[music]