POST-PRODUCTION Action Employ your stage manager for an additional week to ensure that all costumes find new homes and are not sent to landfill. Contact local schools and theatres to see if they can use materials. Evaluate your environmental performance against your original objectives. Document good practice and good suppliers found during the process and other useful learning for inclusion in an environmental production policy for future shows. Feedback to the production manager on what you think went well, and what needs new solutions. Share any learning and good low energy products that you’ve found with peers.
Spotlight Cotton: What’s the Issue? Many of the pesticides used on natural fibres such as cotton are severely harmful to human health and the environment. Deleterious health impacts include cancer, damage to the nervous system (in both humans and insects), disruptions to hormonal balance and the reproductive system, and in extreme cases, death. The World Health Organisation estimates that 20,000 to 40,000 people die from accidental pesticide poisoning each year, most of them in developing countries. Some pesticides remain in the environment for decades and contaminate the environment far from where they were used. Pesticides are also becoming increasingly expensive and can make up as much as 60% of farmers’ production costs, leading to severe indebtedness and contributing to conditions of poverty for farmers. Inability to pay debts brings on thousands of farmer suicides each year. Aside from the environmental and social impacts of pesticides, the textile industry is an immense drain on water supply. It takes about 90 litres of water to produce one metre of upholstery weight fabric. Processes including dyeing, the application of speciality chemicals and finishing processes, and the washes required between each step involved in fabric treatment all contribute to this massive water usage. The water used is usually returned to the ecosystem without treatment, which pollutes the groundwater. This leads to a decline in the amount of useable water and increased health risks among the people also dependent on that water and the entire local ecosystem.
sustainable production guide – Measure and manage your carbon emissions
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