A COLCHESTER-based documentary photographer has travelled to Ukraine to take on an ambitious project.
Ed Gold has been documenting alternative ways of living for more than 20 years.
Ed travelled to Kaharlyk, Ukraine, to meet Wayne Zschech, an Australian-born Christian minister who is turning plastic waste into fuel to make electricity in a process known as pyrolysis.
They had first established contact a few years earlier through a mutual connection.
Ed said: “As soon as I arrived I began to take stills photographs of the pyrolysis project I had come to document.
“After two days, [I] realised that photos on their own wouldn't work, as the story is too complex, so began to make a documentary movie.”
Ed produced a three minute trailer which you can view at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLG6QywbeTM.
The pyrolysis enterprise in Kaharlyk has been running for nine years although the furnace is now going through a research and development phase.
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Ed explained: “Pyrolysis is important, because it directly deals with plastic waste and recycles it so that it gets used again, for energy from fuel products which can make electricity.
“This model of an idea will be aimed at 500 other locations in Ukraine but also it can be used everywhere else in the world.
“It not only employs people and gives them hope and an income, but it tidies up the environment and is a self-sustaining idea.”
Ed outlined the conditions of where he has been staying in the war torn country.
He had been given a bedroom in the basement of a church, which proved to be a safe haven.
Ed added: “It is the safest place to be in case of any missile or drone attack.
“The town has been bombed once, by a fighter jet at the start of the invasion last year and there are daily air sirens in the town which sound so everyone can hear, but now, nobody takes much notice and life goes on as normal.”
While Ed’s current stay in Ukraine is nearly over, he intends to return in August.
He has been invited by Suspilne Media, Ukraine’s public broadcasting company to host and narrate a TV documentary.
It will cover the 2022 Kramatorsk train station bombings which killed seven children.
Ed also intends to complete his pyrolysis documentary during this visit.
This is far from the first expedition story Ed has taken on.
In 2009, he rode a motorcycle from New York City to Denver to Fairbanks in Alaska, a trip which took 12 days and 6,000 miles.
Between 2010 and 2011, he was also embedded with the Colchester-based 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment in their last tour of Afghanistan.
To support Ed’s cause, visit his GoFundMe page at gofund.me/32bc697a
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