Deleting the Dirty Dozen

Earth Report IV
(Programme 16)
 

Series Producer: Christopher Jeans
Series Editor: Robert Lamp
Director:  Ashley Bruce

Genre: Documentary
Region: Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand
Duration: 23' 32''
Language: English

Rachal Carson’s Silent Spring is often seen as the starting point for the modern environmental movement.  Her story of DDT – a so-called persistent organic pollutant – wreaking havoc to wildlife and ecosystems set the alarm bells ringing.  Extraordinary, then, that it’s taken four decades to bring in a global ban on DDT and the other infamous ‘dirty dozen’ most toxic chemicals.  In South Africa at the end of 2000, more than 100 countries agreed a treaty to delete the dirty dozen.  But in an unequal world, Earth Report asks: Are alternatives out of reach?  And can emissions be stopped without massive investment and what have been the effects on our lives of chemicals that are now in us all?