PRLog - Sep. 16, 2014 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Austin-based entertainment company luzworks has a mandate. To become totally independent of plastic water bottles on its movie sets.
“We began this effort during the making of the new movie, Harbinger,” says producer Jonathan de la Luz. What luzworks did was find a strategic partner in Liberty Bottleworks, located in Union Gap, Washington State. According to their website at www.libertybottles.com, they are “The ONLY American-made metal bottle in the marketplace. Liberty Bottles exceed FDA requirements, are nontoxic and non-leaching, and Independent Lab-Certified to be 100% BPA FREE.”
According to Ryan Clark, Liberty Bottleworks Co-founder and COO, "We could not be more excited than we are to be working with luzworks. Our mission from the outset was to change consumer behavior, to ask people to care. We want people to take note of what they are buying and make choices that build US jobs and support environmentally sustainable products. Luzworks embodies that. They are making choices that impact both US production and sustainable practices. We are proud to help them in their mission.”
“I can only speak for luzworks,” continues de la Luz, “but there’s a real problem with movie companies—and many other companies—that are adding to existing landfills when they simply don’t have to. This is a simple fix. And while I know our company’s environmental stewardship is a drop in the bucket (if you pardon the pun); the waste involved in American demand for bottled water is not lost on us. We have to do something.”
During the recent production of Harbinger, the crew was given metal bottles and encouraged to use and wean the crew off of the plastic bottles. Large five-gallon coolers serving as water towers provided by another partner, Kosmo Coolers of Fort Smith, Arkansas, were placed around the movie set for crew members to refill their metal bottles. But old habits die hard. “It took some getting used to,” says Amy Soto, who was the Line Producer and Unit Production Manager on Harbinger. “But I’ve worked on movies where we went through thousands and thousands of bottles in a few weeks. While those plastic bottles are supposed to end up in various trash cans, many of them end up all over the working areas of the set…many of them still half full!”
“So, it’s also a matter of economics,” adds de la Luz as he picks up a nearby plastic bottle and studies it. “For example, the recommended eight glasses of water a day, at U.S. tap rates, equals about $.49 per year, while that same amount of bottled water is about $1,400. My understanding is that the production of bottled water uses more than 17 million barrels of oil annually…enough to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year. And that’s not even including the oil used for transportation.”
Luzworks does not see itself transforming the entire film industry from plastic water bottles to metal bottles. Luzworks’ mission is to simply be a good and highly conscious role model.
What’s next for the green movie company? de la Luz smiles and says, “Just as you crawl before you walk and walk before you run, we see ourselves evolving towards a recycling effort in all areas. I want to encourage anyone listening to do the same. Homes. Businesses. Everything in-between. I would like to challenge all the movie, TV and gaming companies in Austin, Texas to cut out the use of plastic bottles.”
Will the challenge be accepted? Time and a kind of corporate introspection will tell. de la Luz is hopeful.
Harbinger is a fantasy-thriller starring Dimitrius Pulido and Tina Rodriguez and introduces 12-year old Paeka Campos. The movie was directed by Cody Duckworth, who also wrote the original screenplay. It will be released sometime in 2015.
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Austin Production Company Luzworks Goes for the Green—Environmentally Speaking
September 16, 2014 at 23:33 PM EDT
