Plastics recycling hits the big screen

Plastics recycling veteran Michael Domino is generating some buzz with an independent movie that uses recycling as a backdrop.

Domino, founder and chief operating officer of Domino Plastics Co. Inc. in Port Jefferson, N.Y., produced and directed Mott Haven: Cash for Keys, an independent film that won the People's Choice Award at the Chandler International Film Festival in Chandler, Ariz., earlier this year. Domino also co-wrote the film along with Robert Mladinich, a former New York Police Department detective. In April, Mott Haven will be screened at the Sunscreen Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The story of Mott Haven is set in New York's South Bronx, where parts of the movie were filmed. Mott Haven is the name of a neighborhood in that area.

Other parts of the movie were filmed at recycling firm Palmer Plastics in Easton, Pa. Domino Plastics is a brokerage that does business throughout North America, but it doesn't operate its own recycling plant. Michael Domino opened the firm in 1983.

Mott Haven stars veteran actors Paul Wilson and Robert Davi. Wilson's credits include the 2014 film Big Stone Gap, which also featured his brother Patrick, as well as Ashley Judd and Whoopi Goldberg. Davi is a familiar face from his roles in 1980s classics Die Hard and The Goonies. More recently, he starred on the TV show Profiler and has appeared on episodes of Criminal Minds and CSI.

Wilson plays the owner of a struggling plastics recycling firm who gets some much-needed help from Davi.

"The business is consuming him," Domino said in a recent phone interview. "It's a story of redemption that also looks at the gentrification of the neighborhood."

Domino has made other independent films, but this is his first feature-length effort and the first that includes plastic recycling as a subject.

"Plastics have become the poster child for pollution problems, so this is an opportunity to entertain and teach a little at the same time," he said. "Most people don't know what happens when plastic bottles leave the curbside.

"It's really just lack of awareness," Domino added. "They're not aware that those bottles can end up in carpet or clothing."

The movie concludes with a public service announcement from Davi about how viewers can get involved to prevent plastic waste from reaching the world's oceans.

For Domino, the next step for Mott Haven hopefully will be wider distribution.

"I think there's a symbiotic relationship between art and business," he said. "We hope we can get our message across to more people."