Five Ways to Make Sets More Environmentally-Friendly

Film sets are known for a lot of things: fancy equipment, creative workflow, and occasional divas. Yet, environmentally-friendly practices (sadly) aren’t always associated with this industry. 

That’s something I want to change at Kraken Cove Productions. Living in San Francisco has taught me the importance of being sustainable - everyone here recycles and composts and many even have chicken coops in their backyards - and I’ve carried many of those learnings (okay, minus the chickens) to work.

Here are five ways I try to make Kraken Cove’s sets as sustainable as possible:

Use paper sparingly. Crew members love to hold paper schedules, and when COVID hit and paper wasn’t allowed on set, I rejoiced. Instead, some people brought their iPads and read emailed PDFs that I would send to them. But these days paper is back, and as a way to still be conscious I try to offer a limited number of copies of everything. If, for example, a department consists of three people I will offer one copy of a schedule and ask them to share.

Try to reuse ‘expendables.’ Items on set deemed ‘expendable’ are those that are usually thrown away without another thought. 

 Multi-colored gels - or the transparent-colored film used on set - are also often considered expendables. These are usually cut to size from a larger roll, taped up, and then thrown away at the end of day. Oftentimes, the on-set coordinator and I will keep them to re-use on future sets.

Ram board--or cardboard used as temporary floor protection on shoots--is also regularly thrown away. I make sure to re-roll it up after use and save it for the next shoot.

Bring bulk water. I always bring a three-to-five-gallon water jug to set to avoid single-use plastic options.

Offer multiple disposal options. I’ve been working with an environmentally-friendly company called Grove Collaborative for a few years now, and because of them, I came up with the idea to bring color-coded trash cans to all of my sets.

These days, I will bring a blue can for recycling, a green can for compost, and a black can for landfill items. I find that crews appreciate the option to be more sustainable and by bringing the cans myself, it helps me feel better about Kraken Cove’s impact on the planet.

Be careful about catering waste. Restaurants are notorious for offering single-use plastic or Styrofoam to-go containers. I try to combat this by seeking out catering companies that offer compostable packaging materials. 

We’ve made tons of progress in sustainability over the past decade; here’s hoping more sets will adopt these practices and even more options will become available.