recycle
The Garbage Dreams Game Nominated in 2nd Annual Games for Change Awards
The Games For Change Awards recognize excellence in games that address current, pressing social issues.
The Garbage Dreams Game, developed to complement the acclaimed Independent Lens documentary by Mai Iskander, received a nomination in the 2nd Annual Games for Change Awards in the Transmedia category. The awards recognize excellence in “games for change” that address current and pressing social issues and will be presented at the NYU Skirball Center on Wednesday, June 22 and streamed live.
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Celebrate Earth Day with a Social Screening of Garbage Dreams
The exclusive online screening will be held on Thursday, April 21 at 9PM EDT / 6PM PDT on Independent Lens’ Facebook Page and on Livestream.
Filmed over four years, the documentary goes inside the world of Egypt’s Zaballeen (Arabic for ‘garbage people’) to reveal the lives of two teenage boys born into the trash trade. For generations, the residents of Cairo have depended on the Zaballeen to collect their trash, paying them only a minimal amount for their garbage collection services.
These entrepreneurial garbage workers survive by recycling 80 percent of all the garbage they collect, creating what is arguably the world’s most efficient waste disposal system. Recycling to lift themselves out of poverty, the Zaballeen have, through necessity, devised ingenious solutions to one of the world’s most pressing problems.
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Happy Earth Day From ITVS!
Earth Day. Maybe for you it evokes happy thoughts of planting trees and gathering with friends to celebrate the planet and toast to its good health. Maybe it’s one of those extra-dose-of-guilt days when you’re extra conscious of separating your trash and ashamed of the fact you still use an internal-combustion engine to get to work. Perhaps you’re aware enough of the climate crisis, species on the verge of extinction, and the plight of the rainforest, that today you’ll just duck your head back under the covers and wait it out until tomorrow.
Whichever Earth Day style fits you best, we’d like to offer up some helpful resources to make your day a little happier and greener. First off, check out our slate of green-themed films for the occasion, including Dirt! The Movie, Garbage Dreams, and A Village Called Versailles, all airing this month on Independent Lens. And from last season, revisit Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai. That one’s definitely worth revisiting for its inspiration factor alone.
Ah but as Kermit said, it isn’t always easy bein’ green. For example, have you ever been confused about what you can recycle and what you can’t? Same here. As part of our film Garbage Dreams we’ve put together a handy tip sheet for you. Even better, we’ve launched a super-cool interactive recycling game so you can put your newfound wisdom to work. And check out a resource we found when we were researching this: Earth911.com, a site that lets you know what recycling facilities are near you so you can really pump up your recycling efforts.
As they say, we’ve only got one planet so we better treat it right. We salute the filmmakers, community organizers, and educators who work every day to ensure that somebody speaks for the Earth when it can’t speak for itself. Stay green, people!
From Trash to Trade: The Garbage Dreams Game
Garbage Dreams Game
Filmed over four years, director Mai Iskander’s documentary Garbage Dreams goes inside the world of Egypt’s Zaballeen (Arabic for “garbage people”) to reveal the lives of three teenage boys born into the trash trade.
Premiering on Independent Lens on April 27th (check local listings), the broadcast of Garbage Dreams is accompanied by the Garbage Dreams Game, in which players assume the role of the Zaballeen. The game demonstrates that recycling is not just good for the environment; it’s also sound economic practice.
Players start with cash and expenses, one very hungry goat, one neighborhood, and one paper recycling factory. To grow their business and build efficiency, players can make investments in new equipment to recycle other materials, buy extra trucks, hire workers, or expand into wealthier neighborhoods.
Players sort through trash and recycle what can be recycled in Cairo — paper, organics, aluminum, tin, plastic, and glass — all against a ticking clock, sorting through trash piles with the speed, strategy, and efficiency required to match the 80 percent recycling rate of the Zaballeen within 12 rounds of play.
Corresponding lesson plans for grades 9-12 and middle school complement the game and the film, and further explore the issue of recycling and the globalized economy.
Goats, trucks, and territories; organics, paper, and tin. Learn how Egypt’s Zaballeen turn trash into cash. Play the recycling game.
www.pbs.org/independentlens/garbage-dreams/game.html
Los Angeles and San Francisco Proclaim April 20th to be “Dirt Day”
The cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco have issued proclamations naming April 20th to be “Dirt Day” in honor of Dirt! The Movie, the award-winning documentary airing nationwide on PBS’ Independent Lens tonight at 10 PM (check local listings). San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry will sign the official Dirt! Day Proclamations in their respective cities today, to ignite the discussion about safeguarding soil and the billions of organisms it contains.
Dirt! The Movie tells the story of the underappreciated stuff beneath our feet. Narrated by award-winning actress, author and activist, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dirt!, tells the story of Earth’s most valuable and least valued source of fertility from its miraculous beginning to its current crippling degradation. Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, the film deftly combines science and humor as it digs into the history and current state of the living organic matter from which we all come and where we will all one-day return. An eclectic group of passionate dirt lovers appear in Dirt! – from world-class biologists to Rikers Island convicts, from community activists to Nobel Laureates – to offer viewers answers to problems while inspiring us to clean up the mess that we have created.
Don’t miss Dirt! The Movie tonight on Independent Lens (check local listings).
Watch an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis, the narrator for Dirt! >>
Dirt! The Movie Premieres Tonight on Independent Lens on PBS
“Charming… Dirt! The Movie digs deep into soil. -San Francisco Chronicle
“An invigorating look at an invaluable substance we take for granted that makes the case that ‘dirt might be more alive than we are.’” -Los Angeles Times
It’s under our feet and under our fingernails, but what is it? And how did it get there? Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, find out how industrial farming, mining and urban development have led us toward cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods and climate change. Dirt is a part of everything we eat, drink and breathe. Which is why we should stop treating it like, well … dirt.
Dirt! The Movie premieres tonight, Tuesday, April 20 at 10:00 on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings).
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