NT-3348

WNET

Blank

Show opener

Host Lipsyte welcomes guest and commentator for tonight's program - Eric Goldstein, Sr. Attny with Natural Resources Defense Council and Author.

Title slate for off site segment: "Deposit But No Return". glass bottles overlay our Planet Earth.

Hershkowitz walking into package store carrying box and bag of empty bottles hoping to recycle. Storefront covered in cigarette posters.

No luck at package store Hershkowitz now seen walking into a Food Market with same bags of empty bottles and cans.

Hershkowitz entering third food market with same empty bottles, storefront with signs posted in windows, Marlboro sign on stand out front

Hershkowitz standing in front of Virginia Slims poster.
COMMENTARY - HERSHKOWITZ.
I've gotten rid of most of my bottles and cans. But as you saw our small bodegas are reluctant to accept them. High storage space costs and handling costs are prohibitive for some small groceries in New York. upstate, the redemption rate is more than 90%. In New York, it's only 55%. In part, that's because we have fewer outlets that accept bottles and cans. This is especially burdensome on the homeless.

Man picking bottles out of large white container at the bottle redemption center, We Can on 52nd Street. Pan out reveals several containers behind a chain linked fenced in area, couple of fellas hanging around.

Hershowitz unseen explains through pictures, the step by step process of what happens when a can or bottle gets recycled.

Woman walking through Jing Recycling Plant in Queens, Barbara Madden.

African American worker with hard hat empties huge plastic bag of aluminum cans onto conveyor belt.

Thousands of crushed aluminum cans stacked together

Madden standing near crushed cans and recycled materials and points out cardboard boxes with glass.

Close up on large crusher machine in recycling plant.

Workers in Recycling Plant picking through and throwing boxes as they come through conveyor belt.

Talking head, Joseph Lomuscio, Owner Jing Recycling talking with unseen unknown interviewer about the importance of finding a way to get rid of the plastic.

Back with Hershkowitz - he's at a garbage dump, tractors are moving slowly up the hill behind him and a large amount of garbage is seen. He talks with unseen unknown interviewer and gives the stats - 50% of all plastic bottles returned to stores do not get recycled, 20% of all glass bottles returned tot he store don't get recycled - they wind up in incinerators or toxic dumps like the one he's standing at.

Hershkowitz walking slowly toward camera at a grassy area that was once a vast wetland, but now a muddy murky garbage dump

Pan out on studio, Robert Lipsyte sitting at triangular table introduces guest, Eric Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Interview concludes - Lipsyte cuts away to next off site segment hosted by Andrew Serwer of Fortune Magazine - air pollution in New York.

Interior Bellevue Hospital Emergency Room in New York. Police officers gathered talking, nurses.

Attending Emergency Room Physician, Dr. Hoffman speaking with unseen interviewer talking about how the incidence of Asthma has maybe doubled in the last 10-15 years. Zoom in on his face as he speaks about how patients say the weather conditions have an impact in part on their illness.

Dr. Hoffman handing young female patient with dark hair and big eyeglasses a portable breathing apparatus. Patient takes a large breath through the apparatus (looks like a hairdryer).

Wide shot oil refinery - industrial area, cars in parking lot, several buildings with many smoke stacks, thick clouds of pollution smoke billowing up into the sky.

Pan in on red waste containers (in hospital) holding used plastic gloves, and other waste. Large Syringe sticking out of container.

Pan out from brick building next to NYU Medical center, a smoke stack is seen on top of the Medical Center, some black smoke coming out

Talking head Sam Bishop, New York Alliance for Clean Air speaking with unseen unknown interviewer outdoors, traffic going by.

Bishop turns and points toward the other direction, down
First Avenue. He points out this area has three other medical facilities including the Beth Israel Medical Center..

Bishop walking down First Avenue with Andrew Serwer from Fortune Magazine - with narration.

Pan down from top of the Kriser Dental Center to the street. Serwer, walking down the street in the midst of traffic, speaks about how ironic it is that the hospitals are contributors to the pollution and our health.

Cutaway to Serwer leaning against an ambulance talking about the archaic incinerators which would be difficult to modify or improve. But the New York State Dept of Environmental Conservation has released a new set of regulations set to be in effect by January 1992.

Wide shot and z'in on tall slim smoke stack on the top of a building against a blue sky. Zoom in to top

Andrew Serwer from behind chain link fence speaks about the hospitals' proposing to build one big regional center to burn medical waste but states - "where will it go, it has to go somewhere, how about your neighborhood?"

INSERT INTERVIEW - ERIC GOLDSTEIN
Eric Goldstein
the problem with hospital incineration is really that in most cases, they are located in densely populated neighborhoods, they have poor pollution controls, they're operated by untrained personnel. And that's unlikely to change. Asking hospitals, which are primarily responsible for health care to become air pollution specialists is not a strategy for solving this problem.
Robert Lipsyte
What would be a strategy,
Eric Goldstein
we really first need to concentrate on reducing the amount of wastes produced in hospitals, which has grown explosively over the last decade or two. And to ask that they recycle more, they're still using plastic forks and paper plates in these hospitals. When there's no need for those items. They could be using more recyclable material. Ultimately, on site incineration is probably the worst way to go in terms of public health for hospitals.
Robert Lipsyte
Well, that's the first step. What about cleaning the air in in general, do you think it can be done?
Eric Goldstein
It can be done ironically, in the governor's environmental Bond Act proposal, which was approved by legislative leaders yesterday, there was a plank in that that's a $50 million allocation for hospital disposal. We've got to make sure that that does not go to onsite incinerators. The broader issue of air pollution is going to force us to address motor vehicle travel. We've gotten 25% increases in travel throughout the New York Region over the last two decades. Unless we find a way of solving that problem. We'll never get clean air in this region.
Robert Lipsyte
Well, let's move on to our third and final story.

Cover slate: "Chromium Blues", skull and crossbones overlay the Planet Earth.

Narrator Sennott talkng about the poisonous, dangerous carcinogen, Chromium, blowing in the wind of neighborhood parks in Jersey City, over shots of seagulls and a large barren looking area.

Completely littered area with chain link fence and trash bin

Two young 14 year old kids (male is Neil Napolitano), strolling slowly through littered area of LaPoint Park in Jersey City where they used to play. Narration by Sennott, he states Neil never knew why the dirt had a yellow shine to it.

Pan in on sign in a vacant area: "Warning Keep Out This area contains dangerous contaminated materials which are harmful to HUMAN LIFE - NO TRESPASSING"

Chain link fence open to a fenced off littered, vacant area with strange green sunlight rays shining down.

Pan out from buildings in the neighborhood bordered by chain link fence separating them from the poisonous littered chromium dumping grounds.

Newspaper clipping from the 1950's about the Chromium dumping: "A Blessing in disguise". Overlay on the article reads: 'Chromium has given the city a "tremendous boost in fighting a rodent problem..." We find it kills off rats...it has been a...help to

Newspapers (The Jersey City Reporter) with headline: "Death Blamed on Chromium"

Sennett walking with Ron Ross, Consultant with the Jersey City Health Department and expert on Chromium contamination.

Dr. Ron Ross speaking to unseen Sennett about Chromium contamination.

Pan out from high school stadium to close by adjacent lot and site of Chromium land fill - Ross points out the danger and exposure which when inhaled increases chances of lung cancer.

Interior of condemned restaurant, damaged walls, garbage strewn about, sheet rock with holes

Sennett in parking lot of abandoned supermaket - two homeless men sitting against graffiti wall.

Talking head homeless African American man talking about the Chromium issue.

INTERVIEW CONTINUED - GOLDSTEIN.

Robert Lipstye:
Eric Goldstien, we seem to have a lot of these these environmental Trojan horses like chromium. What else is out there waiting to get us

Eric Goldstein
a while back, Bob, we had one of the chemical manufacturers who used a slogan that said without chemicals life itself would be impossible. Well, this little segment is the more sinister side of the chemical explosion. We've seen the same situation with this bestest, we've seen the same situation with lead. And one of the real tragedies that this story illustrates Is that too often the environmental impacts are felt most severely on the urban poor.

Robert Lipsyte
Well, again, it's post Earth Day of the party's over, let's get down to earth. What should we do?

Eric Goldstein
I think one of the real pluses that will grow out of the Earth Day festivities, is a greater willingness to work between all segments of not only the environmental community, but the urban communities and throughout the region to pull together on this. We are all working in the same direction. We're all suffering the same problems. The poor suffer from it the worst. And I think there's a growing recognition of that fact

Robert Lipsyte
Well, we've seen that in those pieces. I mean, there was always that feeling that environmentalism was really something elite run by people in very expensive flannel shirts. And now we see it does something it does kind of bind bind us all together, doesn't it?

Eric Goldstein
It sure does. We all drink the same water, we all breathe the same air.

Robert Lipsyte
But what we said at the top of the show was that it's not easy being green. It will take enormous effort both on an individual on our government basis to make this thing work, because on the short term, it's still it's still making too many people too much money not being environmentally sound.

Eric Goldstein
Well, that's true. And for a long while our political leaders have been able to slip by and slip through by just mouthing the right words. Now, I think people are saying, we hear you saying you're an environmentalist. What are you going to do to help us?

Robert Lipsyte
You do senses of some feeling out there?

Eric Goldstein
Well, if the 75 three quarters of a million people who turned up in New York City's Earth Day celebration are saying anything. They are saying we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

Robert Lipsyte
Well, we'll see. We'll see next year. Eric Goldstein, thanks very much for being with us. That's the 11th hour. I'm Robert Lipsyte.

Show credits over wide shot Lipsyte sitting with Goldstein in the studio.

End reel.