A few of the problems with recycling as we’ve been practicing it include:

• Consumer products are packaged in half a dozen different types of confusingly-labeled “plastic,” most of which is not recyclable at all, or is made unrecyclable by hard-to-remove labels.
• Directions for consumers wishing to recycle are chaotic, with each community (or school, business, apartment, etc.) forced to devise its own messaging. As a result, a large majority of potentially recyclable material is contaminated by waste, and dumped in landfills.
• Consumption has continued to rise: In 1960, the average American generated 2.68 pounds of garbage per day; by 2017, that number had grown to 4.51 pounds.

Add to these problems the fact that powerful corporations (who spend billions of dollars a year “greenwashing” their brands) profit from the failure of recycling, and we have a daunting challenge.

Hundreds of organizations and hundreds of thousands of employees and volunteers are working creatively to reduce consumer waste, greatly increase the use of recyclable materials, and conserve natural resources through a continual process of re-use. We’re joined by Mike Garfield, a nationally recognized leader in the field of waste reduction and recycling.

Mike Garfield

Mike Garfield is Director of the Ecology Center, which was founded in Ann Arbor just after the first Earth Day in 1970. Mr. Garfield has worked for health, environment, and justice in Michigan for over 30 years, serving as Director of the Ecology Center since 1993. Garfield has been one of Michigan’s leading voices on environmental issues, and an architect of some of the state’s most ambitious municipal initiatives in land use, transit, and solid waste. He is one of four founders of the new Alliance of Mission-Based Recyclers (AMBR).

Under his leadership, the Ecology Center has grown from a primarily local organization focused on Washtenaw County into a regional innovation center with a national reputation. Over the past two decades, the Ecology Center spearheaded a statewide campaign that closed all of Michigan’s medical waste incinerators, established the Midwest’s largest locally- funded land preservation program, created the country’s premier consumer product toxic testing service, and won the nation’s Top Community Recycler award. The Ecology Center has offices and facilities in Ann Arbor and Detroit, and is the parent organization of Recycle Ann Arbor.

Garfield’s advocacy work has specialized in environmental health, climate, zero waste, and land use policy. He was one of the principal architects of Ann Arbor's nationally regarded recycling program, leading campaigns that funded major public investments in the program’s infrastructure. Between 1999 and 2005, he led or co-led six successful ballot campaigns that are preserving over 10,000 acres of land in southeast Michigan, including campaigns that created the Washtenaw County Natural Areas Program, and the Ann Arbor Parks and Greenbelt Program. He was one of the leaders of the 2014 ballot campaign to expand transit service in Washtenaw County. He’s testified before congressional, state legislative, and local committees, and served on numerous nonprofit and public boards and commissions.

Mind the Store

Break free from plastic

Dr. Edwards was born in South Wales, UK, and received his PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry from the University of Leicester, UK. He did postdoctoral research work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO and Purdue University in Indiana. Now an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Eastern Michigan University, he is part of a research group that measures both air quality, and the factors that influence it. His group is passionate about analyzing the quality of the air all citizens are exposed to, both in the Detroit urban corridor, and around the state of Michigan. They are engaged in ongoing efforts to build long term data-sets on how ozone and other gases are changing in concentration due to climate change, legislative policies and other factors

 Watch this program on YouTube: 48217

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/struggling-to-breathe-in-48217-michigans-most-toxic-zip-code/

https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air

https://www.planning.org/planning/2020/oct/life-in-48217/

Smogtown: The lung-burning history of pollution of Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

League of Women Voters of Washtenaw County & Theresa Reid host Kyle Whyte, PhD

What can we learn from indigenous leaders as we try to find morally responsible and effective solutions to this man-made crisis? How do we ensure that proposed solutions do not further hurt the black, brown, indigenous, and poor communities that already suffer from severely unequal distribution of pollution and toxic waste? How do we ensure that indigenous voices are heard and respected in the search for equitable solutions? See the YouTube video of this live event: https://youtu.be/eGCbpvP6ia8

Kyle Whyte, PhD,  is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and is the George Willis Pack Professor of Environment and Sustainability, focus on Environmental Justice, at UM’s School of Environment and Sustainability (SEAS). Professor Whyte currently serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the Management Committee of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, the Board of Directors of the Pesticide Action Network North America, and many other national, regional, and state bodies addressing environmental inequity from the indigenous perspective.

Links mentioned in the podcast::

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-report-president-biden-justice40-initiative

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/07/20/the-path-to-achieving-justice40/

https://www.science.org/content/article/native-tribes-have-lost-99-their-land-united-states

https://www.michiganej.org

https://sustainability-innovation.asu.edu/person/donald-fixico/

https://anthropology.washington.edu/people/jean-m-dennison

https://turtletalk.blog/

Book recommendation: David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon