Dirty Movies

Hollywood spews excess pollution along with its blockbusters

Hollywood is facing an inconvenient truth: it's a dirty industry. A UCLA report says TV and film productions pollute more than four other local industries, including aerospace and semiconductor manufacturing (but likely less than oil refineries, so that's a comfort). Set construction, special effects, and other excesses emit 140,000 tons of ozone and particulate pollution a year, adding to L.A.'s notorious smog. While the report singles out a few films -- including The Day After Tomorrow, which offset its carbon emissions, and two of The Matrix movies, which recycled 97 percent of their set materials -- it says Tinseltown's "structure and culture hamper the pace of improvements." Reps for the industry, which employs 252,000 in the L.A. area, were quick to defend their eco-cred, but not everyone is buying it. "They're not green at all except when they're forced to be," said Ted Reiff of ReUse People of America, which dismantled the Matrix sets. He'll never work in that town again.