Was anthing sent to landfill?

[i dont know]

Hi

Ok, dont think that I am completely crazy here, it is just a thought but.....

I am sure that once upon a time, someone said that stuff was occasionally sent to landfill by the TV companies.

If it was, was it a normal household rubbish landfil?? Or was the material burried on its own? Was it burried intact or distroyed first?

'Cause I am thinking.......could it be dug up!! And yes i am completely serious.

I know it would be in a shocking condition, but 1 or 2 things might have survived and be restorable.

Just a thought.

idk

[Gareth R]

Yes, lots of stuff *was* reportedly sent to landfill.

But as has been pointed out *many* times before, the idea of recovering anything is faintly ludicrous.

First problem : many, if not all of the landfill sites used back then have since been built over.

Second problem : even assuming you can find one that hasn't been built over, you're talking about something that covers a huge amount of land. How, precisely, are you going to locate a film that could be buried dozens of feet deep anywhere on a multi-acre site?

And third problem : even assuming that you know an eccentric millionaire willing to fund the industrial-strength equipment and manpower needed to dig up an old landfill site (and then re-fill it all afterwards), any film that, by some miracle, you manage to unearth in a condition that would allow it to be run through a telecine will be useless, since several decades of water damage and the effects of crushing (landfill material was routinely watered-down and crushed, in order to pack in as much as possible) will have totally destroyed the emulsion - i.e. it'll be a strip of blank celluloid.

There may well be a lot of missing material still out there, but none of it will come from landfill sites.

[i dont know]

So why was stuff sent to landfil though?? I can understand the obvious reason of recycling film to regain chemicals that are expensive and can be used again, and i can understand obvious reason of reusing expensive tape.

But why get rid of film of tv to a landfill site? It doesnt make sense. It a loss-loss situation, you end up with niether the program or the medium it was stored on. You would have thought that one or the other would have been desirable....either to keep the program, or regain the expensive medium.

idk

[H Hartley]

I don't know.
You can check the threads here right back to the beginning and you will find its a very old chestnut.
here are just a few possibles, but everybody has their own ideas..

You have to think about space, sometimes you walk into a room and just want clear it out don't you? and the quickest way to do it is just to order a skip, because you need the room for something else.

The mood of the great British Public was somewhat
antagonistic towards repeats up and to the 1970s .
It could be argued that there was so much good stuff coming along that they did not need to see anything twice . Repeats were hidden away in late night or afternoon slots. If the public could not stand repeats
then least of all could they stand B/W repeats, having paid a great deal for the even then expensive colour TV licence So from this,you can understand why those controlling the pennies decided to skip certain programmes.

Another reason for skipping was good old human emotions of revenge and anomosity . Is it coincidence
that hardly any of Jess Yates' productions survive?
Also it is known that there was no love lost between the staff of ABC and Rediffusion TV and they have the most seriously depleted archives.

[Gareth R]

Guest-i said:

So why was stuff sent to landfil though?? I can understand the obvious reason of recycling film to regain chemicals that are expensive

I've never, ever heard of the BBC - or any other broadcaster, for that matter - recycling film. I wasn't even aware that it was possible. Do you have proof that the BBC recycled film?

[B Thomas]

Recycling Film??? No one that I am aware of would even consider this as a possibility. Why?

Film is a once-only medium. Once it has been exposed and developed it is rendered useless for any other means other than storage of the developed images/sound it contains.

Film is nothing like videotape, which was developed as a re-usable medium. Please do not confuse the two media.

Any other form of "re-cycling" (in other words, rendering the celluloid matter into it's elemental constituents) creates a two-fold problem:

A. Many other chemicals (silver nitrate in the early days - other chemicals used over the years until now) are introduced to the celluloid, thus contaminating any "chemical" that may or may not be desirable to recycle and;

B. This process would be cost-prohibitive even by today's standards. Certainly this would have been the case in the 1970s.

In conclusion anyone (in the past or today) wishing to engage in this (perhaps commendable?) activity must have a lot money, time and expertise on their hands.

[i dont know]

Guest-B said:

A. Many other chemicals (silver nitrate in the early days - other chemicals used over the years until now) are introduced to the celluloid, thus contaminating any "chemical" that may or may not be desirable to recycle and;

I thought that was the whole point, to reclaim the silver nitrate?? I am sure somewhere that I read of this being possible. Surely silver nitrate would have some value to it wouldnt it?

idk

[B Thomas]

Hmmm... Silver Nitrate may or may not have had any value in the 1970s as other developing chemicals (not sure which - have to talk to a developer) were in common usage then.

As far as I know silver nitrate as a developing fluid (commonly used in the early days of film) went out with the ark so wouldn't really have much value to those in the 1960s/1970s. Correct me if I am wrong.

Regarding the possibility of such an exercise I'm still not sure it would have been practical to those concerned. I refer to point B in my earlier comment regarding the viablility of any recycling possibilities.

[CliveUK]

Guest-Gareth said:

There may well be a lot of missing material still out there, but none of it will come from landfill sites.

Take, for example, the contents of the Blue Peter 'Time Capsule' which was dug up in 2000 after 25 years in the relative stability of the Blue Peter Garden, having been stored in what was supposed to be a water-tight container.

What came out was pretty much mush (Did they ever get round to playing those audio tapes ?)

[Gareth R]

Guest-CliveUK said:

Take, for example, the contents of the Blue Peter 'Time Capsule' which was dug up in 2000 after 25 years in the relative stability of the Blue Peter Garden, having been stored in what was supposed to be a water-tight container

Perfect example! And as you say, that was stored in a container, whereas I *think* I'm correct in saying that films were removed from their cans prior to being sent to landfill.

[Laurence Piper]

Now the idea of digging up landfill sites to look for film prints is where the interest becomes an obsession. Anyway, i'm sure that housing estates or business parks are now residing on the space previously occupied by most of them!

[H Hartley]

Film used to be easily recycled , you have to remember at one time it was a living organism made of organic materials. Not sure how it has faired since the Fuji film made the break through with its use of mylar/polyester materials ?

The old saying
" film is made of trees and silver "
" tape is made of rust and plastic "

[William Martin]

this is the earliest thread on this
missingepisodes.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1069261526
almost exactly 1 year ago, must be something about winter.

[James Phillips]

Guest-i said:

So why was stuff sent to landfil though?? I can understand the obvious reason of recycling film to regain chemicals that are expensive and can be used again, and i can understand obvious reason of reusing expensive tape.

But why get rid of film of tv to a landfill site? It doesnt make sense. It a loss-loss situation, you end up with niether the program or the medium it was stored on. You would have thought that one or the other would have been desirable....either to keep the program, or regain the expensive medium.

idk

Simple answer - space. They didn't want to have to store all these film prints that they had no commercial use for.

As to why they didn't just incinerate them, I don't know. Perhaps they were thinking of the environment..?