Man Who Can't Stop, The

1973, 58 Minutes

This is the story of Francis Sutton - a man ahead of his time.

In the early 1970s, environmentalist Francis Sutton (Director Michael Rubbo's uncle) campaigned to save the NSW Central Coast shoreline from ocean outfall sewage pollution, which showed up in aerial footage as "intense, dark brown sludge", according to Francis.

This film follows Francis as he fearlessly met the authorities head on. His obsessive and passionate efforts irritated the experts and decision-makers. But in spite of constant rebuffs, he persisted in pushing his idea for an inland storage and irrigation system to redirect enriched wastewater for use as fertiliser, instead of wasting it in polluting seaboard disposal, which was the practice of the day.

The Man Who Can't Stop depicts environmental activism in the 1970s - at a time when much less emphasis was placed on the importance of resource conservation and on humankind’s polluting impact on the natural environment.

A co-production of Film Australia and the National Film Board of Canada. © 2011 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.