Sustainable Westford Film Screening: Blue Vinyl w/ Q & A

Title
Sustainable Westford Film Screening of Blue Vinyl w/ Q&A with Dr. Dick Clapp & Joy Onasch PE (Bio's below and on-line)

 Part family comedy and part horrifying investigative reportage, Blue Vinyl can make one simultaneously laugh and shiver with fear in the same, deceptively low-key moments. Documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand, upset that her parents are re-siding their house with blue vinyl, sets out to discover how vinyl is made and why, according to some scientists, it is the most hazardous of synthetic materials.  The hazards of bio-accumulation, pollution, and the makeup of what we commonly hope are benign plastics are tackled in this documentary. 

Register at www.SustainableWestford.org  for $6.50 in advance or pay $8 at the door.  Members FREE!

Richard Clapp - Biography

An epidemiologist with more than thirty years experience in public health practice, teaching and consulting, Richard (Dick) Clapp is a both an Emeritus Professor of Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public Health and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research projects with the Environmental Health Program at UMass Lowell focus on analyzing data related to environmental causes of cancer and other diseases.

Joy Onasch manages the Toxics Use Reduction Networking (TURN) community grants.  Focus areas of the community program currently include reducing or eliminating toxics in the home (including cleaning and building materials), pesticides, perchloroethylene in dry cleaning, the cosmetology industry, and auto shops.

She is an engineer with over ten years of experience with industry, government, and institutions, assisting them with environmental compliance issues and pollution prevention projects. Her technical focus areas include hazardous waste, stormwater, wastewater, oil storage, and toxic use reduction.