📽️See “Blue Vinyl” From Coast To Coast!🍿
Thanks to our network of remarkable grassroots advocates, the award-winning documentary film “Blue Vinyl” is coming to screens all across the country this month. Volunteers are hosting more than 35 film screenings in 21 states with more taking place on Zoom. There are also international screenings taking place in Mexico and Tanzania. Huzzah! To find a screening near you, explore our interactive map.
The Emmy-award-winning film by Judith Helfand follows a woman looking to renovate her parents’ home only to find that the vinyl chloride typically used in many materials came with alarming environmental, health, and environmental justice impacts. Vinyl chloride is a toxic chemical used to make polyvinyl chloride (aka vinyl or PVC) plastic. It’s found in PVC drinking water pipes, vinyl siding, windows, flooring, packaging, furniture, car parts, children's toys, pet toys, shower curtains, credit cards, gift cards, and many other consumer goods. Vinyl chloride is not just suspected of causing cancer — the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers it a Group 1 carcinogen.
As Beyond Plastics president Judith Enck shared, “This documentary exposes the risks of plastic products that most of us touch every day — and it’s guaranteed to evoke shock before sparking the kind of discussions that should drive policy change. It’s a tough reality to accept, that vinyl chloride was designated a human carcinogen half a century ago and is still being used in toys our children chew on, the pipes that deliver our drinking water, and more. These screenings give people the opportunity to discuss the problem with experts and take action to convince the Biden administration to ban vinyl chloride.”
“Blue Vinyl” was released in 2002 and, sadly, remains just relevant today because toxic vinyl chloride is still used to make everyday products, threatening the health of consumers, the communities surrounding vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride plastic production facilities as well as the millions of Americans living along the railways that transport the dangerous chemical — a risk that East Palestine, Ohio, knows all too well following last year’s devastating train derailment and subsequent intentional burning of vinyl chloride there.
A resident photographs the toxic plume of smoke from burning vinyl chloride in East Palestine, February 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that it was considering banning vinyl chloride, there’s much to do to ensure the agency follows through.
To find out if there’s a screening near you, visit our interactive map. If there is not a screening taking place near you, you can still watch the film at home using this (free) link.
To find out how you can organize a screening in your own neighborhood, check out Beyond Plastics’ guide to hosting a screening of Blue Vinyl.
To learn more about vinyl chloride, visit BanVinylChloride.org
If you are unable to host a screening of Blue Vinyl as part of our campaign to ban vinyl chloride, but still would like to take action, you can! Here's how you can help:
Share this Tubi link for “Blue Vinyl” with your network and encourage people to watch the film on their own. A note that short ads may appear every 15 minutes or so.
Host an in-person or virtual meeting to discuss the film. Feel free to add this to the agenda of your regular monthly or weekly meeting. Use this Post-Screening Discussion Guide to facilitate a discussion with your members.
Share the action slides included in the above guide to ask your members/viewers to:
Sign the Petition: https://bit.ly/banvcpetition
Write to EPA: https://bit.ly/banvc2024
And don’t forget to take the actions above yourself! If you have any questions, please reach out to our community organizers, Christina Dubin or Nyah Estevez.
