WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:12.360 [upbeat music] Hey there, Most Important Question listeners. It's Quinn. You know how we spend a lot of time here talking with experts about climate science, public health, democracy, all that kind of stuff. 2 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:24.340 Sometimes I have to pause those conversations because one of my children can't find their Crocs or their shoes or both again, and all I can say is, "Not right now." 3 00:00:24.860 --> 00:00:35.560 That's actually the name of our new podcast, the second podcast we've ever made. But it's even better because my co-host is writer Claire Zolke of the Evil Witches Newsletter. That's me. 4 00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:41.480 And our podcast is where we talk about what it's like to raise kids while juggling everything else that's happening in the world. 5 00:00:41.940 --> 00:00:56.780 That's right, from wildfire or, I guess, hurricane evacuations to debating screen time, perennially lost Chromebook chargers somehow to lost democracy. We are navigating the everyday chaos and the existential one. 6 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:03.420 If you're a parent born in the 1900s trying to raise kids in whatever decade this is, we're right there with you. 7 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:15.380 If you've ever found yourself checking air quality alerts while helping with homework or worrying about rising oceans while refilling water bottles your kids won't use, this show is for you. Not Right Now. 8 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:32.160 New episodes every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. Because we're all just trying our best while googling "Is this normal?" at three AM. [upbeat music] [upbeat music] Plastic. 9 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:51.800 It is the miracle material that has quietly become the infrastructure of modern life over the past sixty-three years and the almost undefeated business model that's continuing climate change and keeping fossil fuel companies alive and reshaping our bodies, our oceans, and our politics. 10 00:01:51.940 --> 00:02:04.970 Yet plastic keeps food fresh and hospitals running and cars and planes lighter, and it's also in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the supply chains that keep churning out more of it while they tell us recycling will handle it. 11 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:15.940 Meanwhile, cities and states are actually trying to rein it in. Companies are pledging circularity, and regular people are left staring at their blue bin thinking, "Does, does this matter? Does any of this work?" 12 00:02:16.980 --> 00:02:24.440 So what can I do about plastic? Every week, thousands of people ask us the most important question in the world, "What can I do?" 13 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:33.680 So every week, I turn around and ask someone who actually knows what the hell they're talking about the very same question. In this case, that is Beth Gardiner. 14 00:02:34.060 --> 00:02:37.920 She is a journalist and author, and she's here to talk about her new book, Plastic Inc. 15 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:52.600 Beth pulls back the curtain on how plastic became so pervasive, why the personal responsibility story has been so convenient for yet another industry, and what the real solutions actually look like, 'cause obviously that's why we're here. 16 00:02:52.609 --> 00:03:05.800 Packaging, product design, corporate accountability, policy that actually reduces the stuff at the source. So stick with us, because at the end of this conversation, "What can I do?" won't feel like a shrug. 17 00:03:06.420 --> 00:03:21.990 It'll feel like a plan. [upbeat music] Beth Gardiner, welcome back to the show. Hi, Quinn. So great to be with you. Thanks for having me again. You're welcome. I looked it up. It was six years ago- Twenty... 18 00:03:21.990 --> 00:03:32.540 last time we talked. 2019. Nothing, uh- 2019 my book came out. 2020 is probably when we spoke, yes. Yeah, yeah. Not- nothing eventful has happened, so that's, that's- No, not at all. Yeah. Tot- It's very stable... 19 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:35.299 totally- Global environment. Yeah. This is really comforting. 20 00:03:36.020 --> 00:03:46.960 I usually immediately, these days, I, probably since we last spoke, I f- I found these questions that are very sort of meaningful to me and to our audience, and the name of the show is a little different because of that. 21 00:03:47.260 --> 00:03:54.400 I think it's kinda been the point all along, but I, I honed in on it. Now it makes sense. Before I ask you to answer the question, I, I wanna provide a little context. 22 00:03:55.220 --> 00:04:08.940 What I love about your journalism in general, much like what Amy Westervelt does with Drilled, right? And- I'm flattered already by the comparison. Oh, no. She's one of my heroes. Yeah. She's incredible. 23 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:22.290 Your last book, Choked, to this one, you, you seem to have exclusively chosen to cover things that make me furious- Well-... which I really appreciate. We seem to share- Thank you. Love you... 24 00:04:22.290 --> 00:04:32.330 and, and Amy as well, this operating principle, which is like you get part of the way into the book and you're like, "I fucking knew it. I knew this." Yes. Yeah. So my standard question is this: 25 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:39.030 Why do you have to do this work? Why do you have to do this work? Why do you keep coming back to these things? 26 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:53.860 I mean, that's such a good question, and about the infuriating thing, like, I take that as such a compliment because I don't know, I don't know if you've read the incredible book, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, about the Sackler family. 27 00:04:53.920 --> 00:05:02.530 Yeah. And I read a review of that somewhere, and I can't remember if it was, like, a published review or just somebody's, like, comment on Amazon or whatever- Yeah... 28 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:13.080 that said, "On every page of this book, I s- I gasped and said, 'They fucking did what?'" Right. Right. You- And I totally- Let me just- When I was writing this-... these motherfuckers, every page. W- Right. 29 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:21.700 When I was writing this, that was, like, what I was trying to convey to the reader. Perfect. Because that's what I was experiencing as I was reporting and learning about it. 30 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:34.040 I mean, listen, I've been doing environmental journalism, environmental writing for quite a few years now. It's challenging in a lot of ways because people always say environment stories are hard to engage with. 31 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:41.680 They can get really dull, right? You can get lost really quickly in sort of the scientific weeds or the regulatory legal. 32 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:52.000 There's a lot of, like, detail, and there's always this issue that the subject is people care, but it's really daunting, and it's really upsetting, and we feel powerless, and it's hard to read about it, right? 33 00:05:52.020 --> 00:06:02.530 And I totally get that, but at the same time, as a journalist, like, what story is actually more imp... Well, there's so many important stories say it's probably not really the right way to think about it anymore. 34 00:06:03.020 --> 00:06:19.840 But sort of generationally, like-You know, in the, in the long span of millennia, like climate change is just, it is actually still the biggest story even in the face of everything that's going on with our, our democracy and the rise of fascism and all of that. 35 00:06:19.880 --> 00:06:28.820 Although they are deeply interconnected, it's the, it's the biggest story there is. And then there's so many different ways you can cover it, right? There's so many journalists out there. 36 00:06:28.860 --> 00:06:33.550 You know, Elizabeth Kolbert is one of my huge, like, climate journalism- Sure... heroes. 37 00:06:33.580 --> 00:06:43.900 She's, I would say, by and large, looking more at sort of the impacts, like what's happening out in the, in the world, in nature, in all these different ecosystems that we can see. 38 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:53.860 There's so many different ways to like, look at this story because it's such a big story. To me, I'm interested in like, the cause, like who is causing this? Like, what is driving this? 39 00:06:54.320 --> 00:07:01.600 That's, like you said, that's what Amy Westervelt has been, like, leading the way on in such a big way, this kind of climate accountability reporting. 40 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:17.200 And then the other thing that's so hard about climate reporting is how do you break it down and find a piece that you can, like, do something meaningful on that hasn't been written about already by so many amazing other journalists and authors? 41 00:07:17.320 --> 00:07:30.800 So with Choked, my first book about air pollution, I really felt like this is such an important story on its own, actually, even if it was not even related to climate. It is. It is not getting quite enough attention. 42 00:07:30.840 --> 00:07:38.340 It's not getting the, the coverage that it's really due, given, you know, the number of people that it kills and sickens every year. 43 00:07:39.580 --> 00:07:57.300 And similarly with this book, with Plastic Inc, I kind of felt like I, as an environmental journalist, and a lot of people, I think, had sort of thought of climate change and plastic pollution as being these sort of two separate problems, like kind of both super distressing and upsetting. 44 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:10.440 Climate change may be more existential, but we are all sort of horrified by these pictures you see of, you know, beaches covered with trash and a turtle with a straw up their no- you know, whatever. It's horrifying. 45 00:08:10.780 --> 00:08:24.080 But I sort of thought of them as separate, and then I kind of came to understand that they actually are really interconnected, and in fact, the biggest way-- There's a lot of ways they're interconnected, but the biggest way they're interconnected is that it's the same companies. 46 00:08:24.650 --> 00:08:36.160 Mm-hmm. It's the ExxonMobils and the Shells and the Saudi Aramcos who are, you know, keeping us hooked on oil all these decades and denying the science and all of that, delaying, foot-dragging. 47 00:08:36.560 --> 00:08:39.660 And they're also the ones who are making plastic, and while we are... 48 00:08:39.700 --> 00:08:49.009 you know, you and I are kind of taking our little bags to the grocery store, and personally, I, like, kick myself when I forget my bag and I have to take a disposable bag- Right... plastic or other. 49 00:08:49.009 --> 00:09:00.780 Because shame on you, Beth. Right. Shame on me. Exactly. So, you know, I'm, I'm more about, like, who, who's driving this problem, like who-- 'cause you need to answer that question before you can start to fix it. 50 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:11.700 We, for a long time, used this tagline of, "Science for people who give a shit," and people could sort of self-identify with that pretty quickly. Science isn't everything. 51 00:09:11.740 --> 00:09:19.470 Everyone became an amateur scientist, for better or worse, through COVID and all these other things. It's more like for-- And we started involving ourself more in, like, civil rights, all, you know, [chuckles] 52 00:09:20.380 --> 00:09:32.180 all that stuff. More for people who give a shit. Eventually, if you do this job long enough, like your journalism, and obviously ours doesn't go nearly as deep, but, but, but, but a broader, nuanced way and whatever. 53 00:09:32.640 --> 00:09:41.650 It's about will. Like there's very- Yeah... little, like, innovation required to change- Yeah... what we need to do. So much of it is the- Right... choices we make. Y- y- yeah, yeah. And 54 00:09:43.800 --> 00:09:49.080 you, you open the book with a quote, "The future of plastics is the trash can." Right. 55 00:09:49.260 --> 00:10:00.460 Which is from 1963, and they talked about this gentleman, Lloyd, and I'm gonna mispronounce his name 'cause it looks like the stuffing recipe to me, Lloyd Stouffer. Um- Yeah... 56 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:12.120 he said, "The industry needed to concentrate on single use to transform a one-shot market for a few thousand units into an everyday recurring market measured by the billions of units," which also sounds a lot like pharmaceutical industry. 57 00:10:12.220 --> 00:10:22.110 [chuckles] Uh-huh. And here's where that balances out 'cause I do wanna set the record straight. Mm-hmm. We have developed incredible drugs, right? Mm-hmm. Things that can... 58 00:10:22.160 --> 00:10:30.000 I mean, besides the vaccines we're just deciding not to do anymore. But these- Right... daily drugs, these lifetime drugs, we now have a malaria vaccine, which we've also kinda decided not to do. 59 00:10:30.010 --> 00:10:37.090 All these different things. We've made incredible innovations. Mm-hmm. Plastic's incredible, right? Yeah. It's made cars lighter. Absolutely. Yeah. It's made planes lighter- Yeah. Mm-hmm... food storage. Mm-hmm. 60 00:10:37.090 --> 00:10:43.440 It's, it's solved all these different things. Medicine. Yeah. They would love for you to stop right there. Yes. Right? Because 61 00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:53.020 the pharmaceutical industry would also love to really not have us focus on prevention and wellness- Yeah, yeah... and know that most of the drugs are- Mm-hmm, right... are treating things that we could just deal with. 62 00:10:53.060 --> 00:11:05.440 Uh-huh. Yeah. You describe here digging deeper, right? Mm-hmm. To this decades-long project. Mm-hmm. Teach us how to throw things away. Yeah. Tell me about when you first ran into that quote, and 63 00:11:06.520 --> 00:11:14.840 you said you used to consider them as two different things, but I feel like through all your journalism, you must have had an inkling of like, "Goddammit, I bet these are related," and that, did that seal it for you? 64 00:11:15.640 --> 00:11:27.020 Yeah, like plastic comes from oil and gas, right? Like, I knew that, but I just didn't understand. I think, you know, we look around us, right? And we just see plastic everywhere. 65 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:35.530 It's part of, you know, every part of our lives, right? From the moment you sort of like put on your glasses in the morning or go to the supermarket, right? Yeah. Open your refrigerator. 66 00:11:36.590 --> 00:11:49.140 And w- we're sometimes distressed about it, all the stuff we throw away, the single use, the takeout boxes, and all of that, but it's like we don't really kind of know exactly how we got here. 67 00:11:49.170 --> 00:11:57.520 And I think, yes, sure, I did have an inkling that they were related, but I think to me, what was so shocking was exactly that quote that you mentioned. 68 00:11:57.680 --> 00:12:03.459 You know, I've never heard his name pronounced, but I guess I, in my head, I always think of it as Stouffer, Lo- Lloyd Stouffer. Sure. 69 00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:23.910 Was like a plastic industry guy, and he spoke at a couple of conferences, I think in New York, to plastic industry people in the sort of days when they were really in, in the early kind of years of trying to-Get this material out into the world and to become the sort of fundamental part of our, our daily infrastructure that it is now. 70 00:12:24.010 --> 00:12:35.630 I think what shocked me so much was the deliberateness of the way that this system was created, right? And like you say, plastic is miraculous. There are so many incredible uses for it. 71 00:12:36.060 --> 00:12:42.650 But the industry, not only do they want you to stop there, but I mean, they are constantly pushing that idea, right? 72 00:12:42.670 --> 00:12:55.810 It's part of the sort of mechanisms of greenwash that they are so adept at kind of confusing us with and, and muddying the waters. You know, that- that's something that you hear all the time, right? 73 00:12:55.850 --> 00:13:06.090 If you, if you ask a petrochemical company, an oil company about plastic waste problems is, you know, plastic is essential. It lightweights cars. It's used to make solar panels. 74 00:13:06.210 --> 00:13:14.510 You know, we want it in our, you know, sterile gloves and syringes, right? And of course, like, all those things are true. It has a lot of valuable uses. 75 00:13:14.570 --> 00:13:24.190 Like, I'm not saying in this book, like, we should stop using any plastic, but there is so much just, like, ridiculous waste. 76 00:13:24.690 --> 00:13:42.510 And the, [chuckles] the example that I used in the book, which a few people who looked at it already, like, r- really resonated with them 'cause several people have mentioned it, is one time I was at the beach and I was getting an ice cream cone, and it came with, like, a little-- I've only really seen this that one time, but like a little drip catcher at the bottom. 77 00:13:42.530 --> 00:13:54.780 It was like a little plastic thing that went on the bottom of the cone. And it's like, that is not necessary. Like, yes, if I go to the hospital, like, I would like to have plastic, sterile, single-use, you know- Sure... 78 00:13:54.930 --> 00:14:02.450 IV or whatever, right? Yeah. Although actually there are some- Yeah, because we know what it used to be, which is like- Right. Right... we had ones that weren't plastic. Yeah, yeah. Also, we didn't fucking wash 'em. 79 00:14:02.530 --> 00:14:18.670 Like- It was just great. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. [upbeat music] Okay, so I wanna tell you all about one of my f-favorite tools I have. It's called Readwise. It has changed my reading. 80 00:14:19.150 --> 00:14:23.150 It has changed my parenting. It has changed my work here. 81 00:14:23.210 --> 00:14:39.330 It has helped me literally just remember things I read, but also start to tie it all together, to find themes and ideas that connect to how I live and parent and how I show up as a partner, but also in my work and to express my ideas. 82 00:14:39.390 --> 00:14:49.150 I've got 300-something books in there, a couple thousand articles, a ton of old tweets. Here's how it works. You highlight stuff in Kindle or whatever, or Readwise's Reader app. 83 00:14:49.630 --> 00:14:59.890 It saves it to Readwise, and then every day the app is on your phone or whatever, and it's like, "Hey, here's five of your past highlights. Would you like to review them in 10 seconds?" And you do. But here's what's fun. 84 00:15:00.270 --> 00:15:13.290 You can also do more, and you can search it all. I can't imagine having this in college. I would've probably graduated easier. Does it help me build a broader understanding of all the niches we work in? Yes. 85 00:15:13.670 --> 00:15:23.790 Does it help me build a broader understanding of how it all ties together? Yes. I truly think Readwise will change your reading and your life like it did mine. 86 00:15:24.290 --> 00:15:34.970 It all just syncs together once you click a few clicks and hook it up. So right now they're offering you guys, my listeners, two free months of Readwise when you sign up instead of the usual one month. 87 00:15:35.470 --> 00:15:48.010 Readwise and their reader, which is called Reader. The link to sign up and get that extra month is in the show notes, and it's also here. I'm gonna read it to you. It is simple. It is readwise.io/quinn. 88 00:15:48.430 --> 00:15:52.910 That's readwise.io/quinn. Again, it's right in the show notes for you. Just click it. 89 00:15:53.390 --> 00:16:00.600 Please check out Readwise today, support our partners, and never forget what you read ever again, which is not something I thought I'd ever say. 90 00:16:01.810 --> 00:16:17.010 [upbeat music] And, you know, but we don't have to go back to that if we want to, like, not have the ice cream cone drip catcher and the throwaway forks and all this, like, crap that never gets used, right? 91 00:16:17.070 --> 00:16:23.030 So there's so much deception in, in even, like, what they emphasize and what they talk about. 92 00:16:23.050 --> 00:16:41.210 But, you know, to go back to the idea that the deliberateness with, with this-- with which this system of disposability that is now such a commonplace that we don't even really, like, see it or understand how it got there, it was built with just great intentionality because it was extremely profitable. 93 00:16:41.650 --> 00:16:54.970 Coca-Cola used to run an enormous infrastructural system of reuse, which, you know, our grandparents was-- It was totally routine for them, right? Sure. You bought the bottle. You brought it back to the store. 94 00:16:55.070 --> 00:17:08.710 It went back to the bottling plant. A truck picked it up. Like, those bottles could be reused 90 or 100 times. And the-- this guy stood up on a stage and said, like, "That is lost revenue because we could've sold 95 00:17:09.630 --> 00:17:22.390 80 bottles, and we only sold one bottle." Mm-hmm. Like, someone is making the bottle. And, you know, for Coke as well, it's lost revenue because they don't really-- they didn't really wanna bother dealing with that. 96 00:17:22.420 --> 00:17:33.069 At one point they had to. There was no alternative to deal with the empties and refill them and wash them, and you have to pay people, and you have to have trucks. And they would rather just, like, not deal with that. 97 00:17:33.110 --> 00:17:41.290 The packaging is not their problem, and it becomes our problem. Those, those costs of dealing with the, the empties did not go away. 98 00:17:41.310 --> 00:17:54.290 They got pushed onto us, the public, you know, because you're paying, whether it's a, a, you know, a, a rate fee to your, your trash and recycling collector, or you're paying your local taxes to pick up the garbage and clean up the streets. 99 00:17:54.330 --> 00:18:06.710 Like, they very, very successfully pushed that cost onto the public. Because you have morals, and you at some point were like, "I can't deal with this waste." 100 00:18:06.770 --> 00:18:21.326 And so, so comprehensively they said, "Also, here's a plan we call Keep America Beautiful." Right. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about how they do-Recognize that they said, "Okay, great. 101 00:18:21.606 --> 00:18:31.316 Here's how we're gonna deal with it, is you're gonna deal with it." Not just the excessive ice cream drip things. Those are the ones where I just so- Right... all the time. Yeah, yeah. But also- Right... 102 00:18:31.366 --> 00:18:36.906 just mainline production. Talk to us about Keep America Beautiful and the Crying- Right... 103 00:18:36.916 --> 00:18:45.266 Indian, and this denial playbook that everyone thinks, well, I guess unless you read your work, and Amy's work started with tobacco. It is not. Right. This is the same playbook- Yeah... over and over and over. 104 00:18:45.326 --> 00:18:50.665 Exactly, yeah. And re- it actually really originated with the oil industry- Yep... a lot of research now has shown. 105 00:18:51.326 --> 00:19:08.026 So, you know, ever since this idea of disposability was invented sort of post-World War II, and gradually, you know, sort of built into the world, right, and into our lives, people have had concerns about it, right? 106 00:19:08.126 --> 00:19:19.706 The public has been concerned about it. And over the course of the history as plastic production has gone up and up and up, and that's one thing I just tried to like really keep a focus on in the book, right? 107 00:19:19.766 --> 00:19:23.226 It's the production. It's not- Mm-hmm... demand and us as consumers. 108 00:19:23.786 --> 00:19:33.906 But there has always been these moments of like sort of public disquiet and concern, and there's been times when it's boiled over, usually related to like waste. 109 00:19:33.936 --> 00:19:37.306 And in the '80s there was this whole perception of a landfill crisis. 110 00:19:38.026 --> 00:19:48.226 You know, in the, the late 2010s there were these viral videos of birds and, and fish and, you know, sort of stuffed with plastic, their, their bodies on the beach or whatever. 111 00:19:48.726 --> 00:20:02.946 These moments where public concern has really threatened to actually derail this project of industry to, you know, just make everything disposable, throw away, and sell more plastic at, at the bottom line. 112 00:20:03.206 --> 00:20:29.886 One of these big moments was in the late 1960s and the early 1970s as environmentalism was sort of really growing and gaining steam, and there was a lot of concern in the industry that there were gonna start to be laws at the state level, at the federal level, to either ban, you know, disposable, throw-away bottles, require them s- require the companies to take them back, or at the very least put a, you know, a mandatory fee on them, a deposit, that sort of thing. 113 00:20:30.546 --> 00:20:43.186 So the industry really had to think about how it might head that off. And what they did was come up with this idea of anti-littering campaigns. It sounds so anodyne, right? 114 00:20:43.306 --> 00:20:55.526 And the name of this organization, Keep America Beautiful, to most people today still, you know, sounds like a, a non-partisan, you know- Sure... very non- Like the Patriot Act... controversial civic organization. Right. 115 00:20:55.626 --> 00:21:06.735 It was not. It was an industry organization, different members over different times, but it was founded by some of the really big like food, drink, petrochemical and oil companies, tobacco companies. 116 00:21:06.826 --> 00:21:14.696 Philip Morris, I think, was one of the early members. These big can, the American Can Company, big packaging producers. 117 00:21:15.306 --> 00:21:30.866 People were concerned about litter and about waste and landfills, and so the, this organization, Keep America Beautiful, came up with this, um, you know, they were already doing sort of, you know, newspaper ads and billboards about littering. 118 00:21:30.916 --> 00:21:42.866 "Don't be a litter bug." And it was all about... It, it's so analogous to like the oil industry and the carbon footprint. This is a problem. If you're concerned about plastic, it's not that there's too much of it. 119 00:21:42.946 --> 00:21:53.326 The problem is just that it's ending up in the wrong place, right? It's a waste problem, and it's a waste management problem. It's a litter problem, and the, the bad guys are, they called them litter bugs. 120 00:21:53.386 --> 00:21:59.466 That was the term that [laughs] that came into use- God, that is such a-... in the 1970s... specific throwback. Right? Oh my God. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 121 00:21:59.735 --> 00:22:11.156 And those of us who are old enough also can remember the, the 1970s. It is still considered like an iconic moment in TV history. The Crying Indian. The, the actor was actually an Italian-American guy. 122 00:22:11.626 --> 00:22:24.265 But sort of, you know, decked out in a sort of stereotypical way to look like a Native American guy. Paddles his canoe down a, a creek stuffed with trash, and then suddenly he's standing by the side of a highway. 123 00:22:24.906 --> 00:22:31.646 People are throwing their trash out the window as they go by, and the, you know, the tear is coming down his cheek, right? 124 00:22:32.136 --> 00:22:44.326 And the tagline is, "Some people care about the environment and some people don't," and, you know, we need to... It's all about the individual, right? We need to take care of the world. We need to stop littering. 125 00:22:44.686 --> 00:22:56.426 It, it was aired so many times on TV that the, the films ran out. The, the TV stations were ordering more, and it was an extraordinary moment that the, 126 00:22:57.366 --> 00:23:09.626 the oil and chemical and packaging and beverage industries created this character that actually became like sort of an iconic figure in the environmental movement. 127 00:23:09.686 --> 00:23:25.026 He was actually an industry creation that was all about shifting responsibility from industry and production to the individual and consumption. And also shifting even our understanding of the problem, right? 128 00:23:25.066 --> 00:23:36.126 The problem was not that, that too much packaging was being produced and that industry had replaced systems of reuse with systems of throwing everything away. 129 00:23:36.586 --> 00:23:48.686 The problem was just that you were careless and you threw your cigarette pack out the window instead of putting it in the trash where it belonged. So it's shifting responsibility. 130 00:23:48.706 --> 00:23:59.666 It's muddying the whole idea of the problem, and plastic and all the junk that we're creating and selling and pushing into your life is just fine as long as it ends up in the right place. 131 00:23:59.726 --> 00:24:10.066 So it's all about sort of like, and this has been the playbook over the years, sort of diffusing anger by co-opting it and redirecting it. 132 00:24:10.106 --> 00:24:23.174 That the, the problem is the individual, and it's, and it's on us to, to be better, not be litter bugs. And it, it's such a shocking moment and that, that ad and that campaign became-Part of our culture. 133 00:24:23.374 --> 00:24:32.574 But it's really- Yeah... you know, absolutely analogous, right, to like guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's, it's- Of course. Yeah... the problem is not the industry, the problem is the individual. 134 00:24:33.054 --> 00:24:40.844 They're not idiots. No. These people are extremely comprehensive and- Sure... intentional. I mean, watch Mad Men, right? Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. 135 00:24:40.844 --> 00:24:49.674 Um, but also watch the first episode Mad Men where she's smoking in the doctor's office. Yes. While she's preg- Right... which they inc- not, not just didn't say no to, they encouraged. Yeah. Right? Yeah. 136 00:24:49.694 --> 00:25:00.894 And, and, and they knew. Mm-hmm. Because as we always talk about here, sort of this mechanism I call compound action- Mm-hmm... which is like to defeat something like fossil fuels for transportation- Yeah... 137 00:25:01.004 --> 00:25:08.864 specifically or smoking and lung cancer. Mm-hmm. It really requires a kitchen sink effort, right? Mm-hmm. It requires marketing and legal and- Mm-hmm... and taking smoking out of movies- Mm-hmm... 138 00:25:08.864 --> 00:25:16.054 and all this different stuff. But they have always designed it their own kitchen sink version of this. Yeah. Absolutely. Again, like you said, from the marketing to legal and all this. Mm-hmm. 139 00:25:16.134 --> 00:25:29.104 And so as much as, you know, the saddest conversation I have with people is when I tell them, especially after the, the Chinese decision a few years ago not to take our plastic, is that effectively, like recycling is not real unless it's glass or aluminum, and people- Right... 140 00:25:29.104 --> 00:25:38.814 get sad and they go, "I've been doing the wrong thing." I'm like, "It's t, t, t, t, not your fault." Yeah. But- Exactly... it's more that not only, and you really get into this in the book, that 141 00:25:40.354 --> 00:25:48.474 you may feel a sense of we have st- [laughs] maybe not in the past few months, but that we have started to win this quote unquote climate flight. Yeah. Climate fight, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Of fossil fuels. 142 00:25:48.854 --> 00:25:57.594 To know that they have had an extremely profitable backup plan this entire time, which is like you said, it's the same companies with plastics. Right. 143 00:25:57.654 --> 00:26:11.794 And, and even, you know, today the Exxons and, and the Saudi Aramcos can see that in the long term, and it's not even necessarily like climate policy anymore that's the biggest threat to them, but it's that they're being undercut economically. 144 00:26:12.334 --> 00:26:23.414 Solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of energy. They're way cheaper than coal. They're cheaper than, you know, gas, and that is dangerous if you are a fossil fuel company. 145 00:26:23.794 --> 00:26:29.484 Electric vehicles, you know, despite everything the Trump administration is doing, are on the rise. 146 00:26:29.484 --> 00:26:39.334 They are getting cheaper, and they are getting better, you know, in the rest of the world, if not potentially the United States for the next few years since things are being blocked out and sort of ripped up. 147 00:26:39.404 --> 00:26:54.834 But this is a big threat to the oil industry, so they can see that in the years to come, the demand for oil and gas as fuels is, you know, pretty soon getting ready to flatten and potentially start declining. 148 00:26:54.894 --> 00:27:03.814 And that has been a big part of this push into making more and more plastic. You know, partly it is just a continuation of longstanding trends. 149 00:27:04.314 --> 00:27:20.814 If you look at the, the sort of trend line, ever since the 1950s when plastics really entered the consumer economy in a big way, the numbers have just gone up and up and up and up every year, the amount that is produced by companies and sold and pushed into our lives. 150 00:27:20.894 --> 00:27:42.274 And the projection is for that to continue, and there's even more motivation to do so now because these companies can see that their model is under threat economically and, you know, on a policy level from whatever belated and inadequate [chuckles] efforts we are making to address the climate crisis that- Because something... 151 00:27:42.374 --> 00:27:49.474 we are in. Yeah... because at some point we will continue to make progress on it. Yeah. And they're going, "Great. Here's-" Right... you know, the new- Yeah... Tupperware set you need. 152 00:27:49.514 --> 00:28:03.974 So plastic is another way to monetize that oil and gas and keep it flowing, and a, you know, a good chunk of it still gets burned, and it's- Right... super damaging climate-wise as well. Let's get personal on- Yeah... 153 00:28:04.024 --> 00:28:13.904 on, on all this. You traveled all over the world- Yeah... to, to, to cover this book and, and, you know, with, with all your journalism. I really appreciate how you don't just... Oh, God, what do those idiots call it? 154 00:28:13.994 --> 00:28:24.884 Writing it from the ivory tower. Yeah. That never existed, doesn't exist anyways. Yeah. There's no ivory tower. There's just like a really cluttered living room. Correct. Correct. 155 00:28:24.954 --> 00:28:33.834 There's not even like a cluttered office. It's a cluttered living room. Does... Yeah, that's it. That's it. Terrible like... My wife always writes her screenplays with like her dog in her lap and that's it. 156 00:28:34.434 --> 00:28:47.754 You went to Manchester, Houston, Indonesia. One of the things that bothers me most on the planet, Cancer Alley. They have relied on this idea that we are so into like liberty- Mm-hmm... in this country, right? 157 00:28:47.834 --> 00:29:01.104 Whether it's, it's guns or it's meat- Yep... whatever it might be. Yep. To normalize, again, fossil fuels and- Mm-hmm... and plastic and tobacco and to normalize kids' lunch debt. Yeah. Right? Stuff like that. Mm-hmm. 158 00:29:01.134 --> 00:29:09.024 Not your problem. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's someone else. They should work hard. Mm-hmm. Medicare, Medicaid- Mm-hmm... there should be work requirements. Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter where in the world. 159 00:29:10.214 --> 00:29:25.494 I'm trying to struggle to understand why we seem to be susceptible to net zero and advanced recycling- Mm-hmm... and carbon credits, and letting a place be called, informally be called Cancer Alley- Yeah... for 25 years 160 00:29:26.854 --> 00:29:38.954 and not be able to completely overcome that. And obviously, again, it's about will, it's about money, it's about these things. Yeah. Why, why does this keep succeeding? D- am I making any sense? 161 00:29:39.134 --> 00:29:44.474 This is like in my brain all the time. Yeah. You talk about carbon credits, right, and advanced recycling. 162 00:29:44.914 --> 00:29:54.664 These are, are ideas that the industry has pushed really hard because they actually understand that we, we want it to be okay, right? We feel awful, right? 163 00:29:54.714 --> 00:30:03.894 Like I talk to so many people who say, just friends who are not really particularly necessarily engaged with like environmental issues, but they'll just be like, "Oh, I hate... 164 00:30:04.014 --> 00:30:17.654 I feel terrible every time I get a takeout meal and I, you know, throw all the containers in the garbage," or, "I didn't let my daughter buy a water bottle when we were out in the park because like I didn't wanna throw another plastic bottle in the trash." 165 00:30:17.694 --> 00:30:27.162 Like, we feel bad. Like, we are not idiots. We get... And, uh, we all can see that like this is notGreat. It's not a good system. There's so much waste. 166 00:30:27.262 --> 00:30:39.122 It's so damaging, even if we don't necessarily understand the details of that. And that is a good thing, right? Like, we have that concern. We live in this system where we don't necessarily have the power to... 167 00:30:39.162 --> 00:30:50.262 You know, if you want water, like, there might not be a water fountain, right? Like, you have to buy the plastic and throw it out. But we have this concern, and industry gets that, and they play on it, you know? 168 00:30:50.372 --> 00:31:01.182 And that's why they talk so much about recycling, even though they have understood from, you know, the word go basically, that it was not really feasible with plastic. 169 00:31:01.222 --> 00:31:07.102 You know, like you said, recycling is meaningful if you're talking about paper or cardboard or aluminum or glass. 170 00:31:07.142 --> 00:31:14.582 Those are, like, materials that technically can be reprocessed and, and come out pretty good and be used again a number of times. 171 00:31:14.992 --> 00:31:34.202 Plastic, less so, but they have always pushed it because, you know, th-this writer, Susan Freinkel, who wrote a terrific book about plastic about 15 years ago, spoke to an industry lobbyist who used the term guilt eraser, that the industry understood that plas- that recycling was a guilt eraser. 172 00:31:34.262 --> 00:31:45.642 We all feel bad about plastic, and we want it to be okay because we don't kind of really have a choice unless you're gonna spend a lot more money or a lot more hassle to go to, like, the plastic-free store or whatever. 173 00:31:45.682 --> 00:31:48.022 It's not feasible for most people. 174 00:31:48.042 --> 00:32:06.942 And then you talk about things like Cancer Alley, these places along the, the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, where people are living next door to these plants that are turning fracked gases into plastic ingredients and then processing them further into raw plastics. 175 00:32:07.482 --> 00:32:16.822 And there's all kinds of carcinogens and terrible pollutants going into the air. Listen, Texas and Louisiana are very conservative places. 176 00:32:17.162 --> 00:32:22.482 They're states where the oil and gas industry has had a very, very long-standing presence. 177 00:32:22.862 --> 00:32:35.522 They are very economically and politically powerful, and they have a ton of influence at the state level over the state regulators, over the state lawmakers who set the terms by which the regulators can operate. 178 00:32:36.082 --> 00:32:50.782 You know, and if you talk to them, the, the Texas and Louisiana envir- Louisiana environmental departments that are regulating these facilities and ostensibly protecting the communities that live nearby, they will tell you that they follow the science and protective levels and all of that. 179 00:32:50.882 --> 00:33:01.822 [instrumental music] Hey, it's Quinn. 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So thanks for supporting our partners. 190 00:34:49.082 --> 00:35:11.842 But, you know, if you talk to the people who live there and if you talk to the experts and the environmental advocates who are paying attention, they will tell you that it's, it's regulatory capture, meaning that the industry has so much power over these agencies, the regulatory agencies, that, that they're essentially toothless, or they're even, you know, doing industry's bidding in some cases. 191 00:35:12.442 --> 00:35:20.962 So, you know, I think it's about political power and marketing kind of savvy and resources. 192 00:35:21.022 --> 00:35:35.921 And, and all of us who have our lives to live and we can't spend all of our time, like, kind of going to the, the plastic-free store and, and, like, deep diving into understanding the details of what they're presenting to us in, in ads and all of that. 193 00:35:35.962 --> 00:35:43.162 And we wanna believe it because it would be so much nicer if it was true, right? We, we wanna believe that the problem is, like, 194 00:35:44.382 --> 00:35:49.232 microplastics, a spoon in your brain, instead of the people who live next to these facilities. 195 00:35:49.302 --> 00:36:01.041 But the direct harm is very measurable, and you can, you can see it, and we have satellites where you can see it, and you can see it in, in the test scores of these children, right? Yeah. Just like your pollution stuff. 196 00:36:01.362 --> 00:36:12.692 Sure. And I mean, you went to the, the waste mountain in East Java. Like, w- again, like, when you spend time with each of these people- Yeah. Uh-huh... and you understand, like, very personally- Mm-hmm... 197 00:36:12.732 --> 00:36:23.042 the cost of this system is. Yeah. Again, not just like, "Oh, don't microwave your plastic burrito thing," where it says- Right... like, "Open it up for 30 seconds." Like- Yeah. Uh-huh... this is every day, right? Yeah. 198 00:36:23.112 --> 00:36:25.462 Uh-huh. And they're subjected to that because it had- Yeah... to go somewhere. 199 00:36:25.642 --> 00:36:35.584 Right.What does measurable justice look like for these communities that, again, are all over, from like fracking in Pennsylvania to to again East Java? Like, what does measurable justice start to look like? 200 00:36:35.654 --> 00:36:48.244 I'm trying to stay future positive and like solutions oriented. It's a really big question, and I think I would say it starts with at least stopping the harm, right? Like re-regulating these, these things better. 201 00:36:48.414 --> 00:37:06.813 Like for example, during the Biden administration, there's a lot of complicated regulatory details about how federal and state power interact when it comes to sort of like Clean Air Act and carcinogenic, you know, pollution that's coming out of, you know, ethane crackers as these big plastic-making facilities, some of them are known. 202 00:37:07.184 --> 00:37:20.614 The Biden administration actually took some pretty significant steps forward to tighten the ways that toxic emissions from manufacturing facilities are regulated. You know, it was small steps, but it was the beginning. 203 00:37:21.054 --> 00:37:32.494 I met this guy, Robert Taylor, who lived just outside of New Orleans, right beside the Mississippi River near a plant that makes neoprene, you know, the stuff that's used for wetsuits, artificial rubber, right? 204 00:37:32.554 --> 00:37:37.364 It's, got a laptop case sitting right here made out of it. Of course. It's everywhere, right? The shrimp. Yeah. Yeah. 205 00:37:37.374 --> 00:37:48.454 And when you, when you make neoprene, you pr- you emit a chemical chloroprene, which is super toxic, and Robert Taylor's neighborhood right beside this plant is like ninety-five percent Black. 206 00:37:48.564 --> 00:37:59.714 A lot of people who are descendants of slaves along the Mississippi River, these African American communities that have been there for, you know, centuries. And people are really suffering illness. 207 00:37:59.814 --> 00:38:12.074 It's dispersing the communities. People move away. They get buyouts sometimes from the plants. You know, that, that is the impact, and when you talk about sort of positive action, I'm, I was there a few years ago. 208 00:38:12.134 --> 00:38:13.714 It was during the Biden administration. 209 00:38:13.754 --> 00:38:26.834 There was a lot of litigation going on, and Robert Taylor said he was starting to have some hope for the first time because Biden's EPA director, this guy named Michael Regan, came there and talked about environmental justice. 210 00:38:27.374 --> 00:38:40.594 There were some steps being taken in agreement with the company to reduce emissions and, you know, of course, that was ripped up on probably January twentieth [chuckles] or twenty-first last year, right? 211 00:38:41.034 --> 00:38:52.474 So it's not, none of these things are impossible problems. It's kind of like air pollution. You know, some of it is air pollution, but I mean, my first book about air pollution, it's not really rocket science to fix. 212 00:38:53.334 --> 00:38:56.714 And when you ta- you were talking before about will, like, we just need the will to do it. 213 00:38:57.274 --> 00:39:06.054 Like, yeah, we need the will to do it, but in actually, that even doesn't capture the reality, which is it's not like, do we will it? Do we want it as a public? 214 00:39:06.114 --> 00:39:15.554 Like, nobody really wants, like, cancer-causing chemicals coming out of factories. Right. People live nearby, but these companies are so powerful, right? 215 00:39:15.594 --> 00:39:24.474 Like, was it a billion dollars or something that the fossil fuel industry was talking about giving to Trump during the campaign, like, and they get what they pay for. Um- Sure... 216 00:39:24.494 --> 00:39:41.354 these companies are very powerful, whether it's at the state level, the federal level, the local level even, where they fo- they fight tooth and nail against any kind of local effort even to put, you know, a, a fee on plastic bags or deposits on, on cans and bottles, that kind of thing. 217 00:39:41.374 --> 00:39:46.434 They're very, very powerful, and a lot of it happens behind the scenes, so we don't see it. 218 00:39:46.474 --> 00:39:54.614 They present a very nice face in public, and they talk about sustainability and recycling and, you know, we're, we're going green and all that. 219 00:39:55.114 --> 00:40:06.394 And, and it's hard as, you know, individuals who are not, like, experts and have all the hours in the world to study this kind of stuff to really understand those dynamics. 220 00:40:06.434 --> 00:40:21.044 But to go back to your hope, like, there's ways to fix it. Yeah, I don't use will in a naive way. Sure. I, I onl- I use it in a, again, when I, when someone's like, "Which bin does this water bottle go in?" Yeah, yeah. 221 00:40:21.054 --> 00:40:28.934 Mm-hmm. And I go, "It doesn't fucking matter." Yeah. You know, China's not taking this and this. Right. And we don't know how to recycle these things. It doesn't matter. Right. 222 00:40:28.994 --> 00:40:38.614 What, what I mean by will is, like, we don't need that innovation if we can start cutting it off at the source- Right... the extraneous- Exactly. Exactly... over stuff that we do not need. And again, 223 00:40:39.534 --> 00:40:48.174 it's, the will includes just an understanding from- Yeah, absolutely... again, like books like yours on air pollution- Yeah... of like how and why and where. Yeah. Understanding the apparatus. 224 00:40:48.313 --> 00:40:56.294 We take a lot, talk a lot about people when they go, "How can I affect this thing?" Mm-hmm. Well, let's understand which jurisdiction is actually- Yeah... most responsible- Yeah, yeah... 225 00:40:56.334 --> 00:41:03.714 and charged, you know, 'cause that's where you gotta start. So much more is on the local level than people thought. Maybe not- Yeah... necessarily for plastics, but you get the point. Yeah. 226 00:41:03.844 --> 00:41:12.634 And then it's understanding, okay, what is their backup plan, right? Yeah. So for the climate fight, it is plastics. Mm-hmm. So we gotta make sure we're c- we can't just let them go to that. Right, yeah. 227 00:41:12.654 --> 00:41:20.594 What did, what did they call it? Their escape hatch. Yeah. Right? Exactly. But then it's like you said, it's going to the source. It's going- Yeah... for our antibiotics issue. 228 00:41:20.634 --> 00:41:28.234 It's going to, like, why are we giving these proactively to industrial farms? Yes, right. It's, it's going like this is not because your child has three strep throats. 229 00:41:28.394 --> 00:41:35.784 And I understand how you, you talked about going to this. I have always imagined going to one of these. That you're, you talked about going to the petrochemical conference in Dubai. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. 230 00:41:35.934 --> 00:41:43.014 [chuckles] Playing bingo with- Yeah. It's insane, right? Yeah. But it's so important to have journalism, but also- Mm... 231 00:41:43.054 --> 00:41:56.114 journalism like yours where you go, "I can, not compartmentalize, but I can balance this is power- Mm-hmm... and this, it feels impossible to defeat- Yeah... going to these things and going- Yeah... 'Oh my God,' with 232 00:41:57.274 --> 00:42:04.954 w- there are actually measurable things we can do here. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You talk about Diane Wilson. Yeah. Right? With the Sustainable Fishing Cooperative. Yeah. 233 00:42:05.094 --> 00:42:13.594 France and Germany are starting to actually build some infrastructure. Yeah. Again, like, it requires the kitchen sink. Mm-hmm. We have to go to those conferences to keep reporting out on them and going like- Mm-hmm. 234 00:42:13.654 --> 00:42:20.594 Yeah... they're pretty sure this can keep going- Right, yeah... 'cause we're okay with cancer alley. Yeah. Yeah. But we can do stuff. Yeah. What's the thing 235 00:42:21.954 --> 00:42:31.242 that you feel is most measurable, that if we pushed enough people on it at whatever jurisdiction could start to really chip away at this so that people don't constantly feel like, "Well, fuck it"?Right. 236 00:42:31.402 --> 00:42:52.692 I mean, if you talk to people who are, who are sort of experts on the policy side of this, what they always come back to is this idea of extended producer responsibility, they call it EPR laws, which is basically it's about making the producer of the package responsible for what happens to it rather than you be responsible for what happens to it. 237 00:42:52.692 --> 00:43:01.692 It's like scope three for, for emissions, right? Yeah, except actually making them pay for it. It's not just about- If, if count is reported... accounting for it. Reported, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 238 00:43:01.702 --> 00:43:14.142 So for example, like y- y- yes, Europe has been a leader in addressing plastics, still not enough, but they are taking some really significant steps, the EU. But here in the US, California passed a really big EPR law. 239 00:43:14.642 --> 00:43:14.651 Mm-hmm. 240 00:43:14.722 --> 00:43:40.662 They're making, they're making the companies, the, the companies that make the plastic and the companies that use it and sell it, like the Cokes and the Pepsis and the Procters and Procter & Gambles, who are the ones, you know, selling the- using and selling the packaging, contribute into a fund to subsidize recycling because recycling does not pay for itself, and to subsidize trash collection, right, to make these things possible because it's their packaging. 241 00:43:40.982 --> 00:43:51.422 So it's not necessarily that they are gonna, like, personally take back every bottle and do something with it, but they're gonna pay the cost. Other states have done this, too. Maine has a pretty strong law. 242 00:43:51.762 --> 00:44:10.142 Because when you come down to it, at the end of the day, the reason that plastic has proliferated s- in such an insane, out-of-control way throughout our economy, like this ice cream cone drip catcher or all the other examples we know so well, the Amazon packaging or whatever, is because it is so cheap. 243 00:44:10.602 --> 00:44:20.282 And it is so cheap in part because it in a large part comes from sort of waste products of oil and gas. Like, a lot of the... 244 00:44:20.322 --> 00:44:34.472 When you frack, right, you get the methane which you can burn for energy, and then you also get this thing called ethane, which for a long time they were just, like, burning it off to get rid of it at the wellhead, and then they realized they could build plants and make it into plastic. 245 00:44:34.902 --> 00:44:47.162 So partly it's, it's just a waste source, and that's why it's cheap. But another big... A, a waste product and, but another big reason that it's so cheap is that it does not include the true price. 246 00:44:47.282 --> 00:45:00.362 Like, right, we were talking earlier about how they used to take the bottles back, Coke and other companies, and now they don't, and we're paying, as taxpayers, the rest of the price, which is the, the cost of managing it. 247 00:45:00.782 --> 00:45:11.262 You know, let alone what happens to people in Indonesia or Southeast Asia or Mexico because this global network of waste is always, the destination countries are always, it's always moving around. 248 00:45:11.302 --> 00:45:18.522 It's like a cat and mouse game. But somebody else is dealing with the, the end phase of, of all this waste that we're creating, right? 249 00:45:18.942 --> 00:45:30.562 There's also a cost on, on our health with these chemicals that are in the, the food and drink packaging that we're using or even, like, the clothes that we're wearing, the workout clothes. It's all plastics, right? 250 00:45:30.622 --> 00:45:36.822 It seeps into your body. Like, the, the price tag of plastic does not include that. 251 00:45:36.942 --> 00:45:46.862 So it's why, you know, for example, like, one thing we've all seen sort of particularly since COVID is, like, you go into a restaurant and you're eating there. 252 00:45:46.882 --> 00:45:53.922 It's not, like, a takeout, but they're still giving you a plastic cup that you throw away at the end. Like, that did not used to be like that, right? 253 00:45:54.582 --> 00:46:08.142 So we get why, like, it's kind of hard to create a takeout system that's not based on disposability. But it's not hard to create a eat-in-the-restaurant system where the glass is glass and it gets washed. 254 00:46:08.902 --> 00:46:09.711 Right, but there's such a success of one sweet- Right... what do we, what do you do? How do you do it? 255 00:46:09.742 --> 00:46:16.461 And I'm not really blaming the individual restaurant, right, because it's hard to run a restaurant and- Right, who has no margins... your margins- Right... are super tight, right? 256 00:46:16.522 --> 00:46:32.742 But this material is so cheap because it does not in- include the real price of, of it that it's cheaper for the restaurant to do that rather than to pay the extra staff or maybe they don't have space for a dishwasher in the, another dishwasher in the back, right? 257 00:46:32.802 --> 00:46:43.622 Like, it... Plastic is so cheap that it is cheaper for them to give you a cup that you throw away rather than a, a cup that they're gonna collect and, and clean and reuse. 258 00:46:44.012 --> 00:46:50.772 So that's the fundamental problem, the, the low cost of plastic. That's why it has proliferated in this out-of-control way. 259 00:46:51.401 --> 00:47:02.642 And these extended producer responsibility laws, there's different iterations, there's different ways of doing it, but it's about changing that fundamental dynamic. It's so interesting the things 260 00:47:04.602 --> 00:47:14.902 we focus on in budgeting at the local- Mm-hmm... and state and- Yeah... national level and international level- Yeah... whether it's money to PEPFAR and USAID or- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm... 261 00:47:14.942 --> 00:47:23.152 counties and states that still have school lunch debt. Yeah. Right? Or one of the things-- Here's one. Yeah. If you would like to write about it, I would be grateful. Okay. Period poverty. Yeah, uh-huh. 262 00:47:23.162 --> 00:47:28.052 Things that make me... I have a list here- Okay... of, like, things that make me fucking angry- Yeah, yeah... that I'd love for Beth to write a book about. Okay, great. 263 00:47:28.062 --> 00:47:33.032 And don't make me- I'm looking for a new- Like, I c- I could keep going... I'm looking for new book ideas. We always talk about, like, we never pay the full cost of fossil fuels- Yeah, yeah... 264 00:47:33.102 --> 00:47:41.812 like you said, 'cause we never calculate it. Correct. If we did- Yes, exactly... it would be untenable. Right. We never calculate the true cost of, like, we don't have paid leave, right? Right. M- maternal leave. Yeah. 265 00:47:41.942 --> 00:47:50.092 Like, what is the true cost of that? Yes. What is the true cost of not studying women's health basically- Right... ever- Yeah... in anything? People talk about Amtrak's budget, right? Yeah. 266 00:47:50.382 --> 00:47:56.212 B- and they wanna focus on this. Or we're here, we're, we're at Dominion, which is, like, one of the worst utilities on the planet- Yeah, yeah... 267 00:47:56.222 --> 00:48:05.192 to be clear, has been trying to build this wind farm, and Trump keeps cutting it off. It's just about done. Yeah. There'll be a little extra tag on your bill- Mm-hmm... for, for various things, which 268 00:48:06.602 --> 00:48:18.282 separate discussion shouldn't exist. Meanwhile, you're paying more for trash because of the- Yes... recycling bullshit, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. We just, we struggle so much to understand, like, that so much of this 269 00:48:19.922 --> 00:48:25.992 is not required. Well, and because there has been a very deliberate effort to make it invisible, right? 270 00:48:26.042 --> 00:48:40.722 Like, I think you'd need to always keep coming back to the, the companies and the industries that are making money out of this and that have in many ways built this system with their political and economic power, and it benefits them tremendously.At to the detriment of the rest of us. 271 00:48:41.242 --> 00:48:50.522 Can you talk about the plastic trifecta? I had that written down and I- Yeah... forgot to bring it up. Yeah. So that's the idea of, of Judith Enck, who's the head of this group called Beyond Plastics. 272 00:48:51.002 --> 00:49:00.022 She was an EPA administrator during the Obama administration, and I met her at her house in upstate New York, and we talked about how to make it better. 273 00:49:00.052 --> 00:49:11.362 And she said to me, "M- my theory of change is you make a better law." And that is totally it, right? Like, we want the individual actions or whatever. And to her, like, she-- 274 00:49:12.462 --> 00:49:21.822 her conception of individual action is like, "Fine, yes, bring your reusable bag to the store. Carry around your reusable water bottle." I'm sure she does that. I do it too. 275 00:49:22.102 --> 00:49:32.942 But her organization is actually training people to interface with their state legislators or their local, you know, city council or whatever it is. Take steps, right? 276 00:49:33.062 --> 00:49:35.402 Like, and a lot of the steps are pretty small, right? 277 00:49:35.482 --> 00:49:47.602 The plastic trifecta, I'm not gonna remember it exactly right, but it's a, it's a s- it's a three different laws or measures that, that they want people to press their local or state government to take. 278 00:49:47.982 --> 00:49:59.762 And one is, I think, a, a fee on throwaway bags, plastic and paper actually, because it's the idea of the model of disposability, not just the material plastic that is the problem. 279 00:50:00.082 --> 00:50:12.142 You know, bans on sort of, like, materials like styrofoam. These are, are small things, but they have a big impact to industry. Like I was saying earlier, you know, they fought tooth and nail. 280 00:50:12.202 --> 00:50:20.352 They've thrown the kitchen sink, whatever mixed metaphor you wanna use. Sure. At stopping, at stopping bans, even in, like, a tiny little town. 281 00:50:20.482 --> 00:50:31.742 I went to this, this amazing little town called Bisbee, Arizona, up in the mountains down near the Mexican border. They tried to ban plastic bags or put a fee on plastic bags, like a five or ten cent fee, right? 282 00:50:31.862 --> 00:50:43.362 And the industry went ballistic, and the state ended up passing a law that said no city or town may tax or ban plastic bags or other containers. 283 00:50:43.772 --> 00:51:00.242 And the reason why the in-- that is really disheartening, a lot of states have those laws, it's called preemption, but the reason why they do that is because those laws are actually really powerful, and it's not just because of the direct effect of, like, the plastic bag, 284 00:51:01.262 --> 00:51:11.642 you know, fewer plastic bags being used. The industry says that plastic bags are, you know, a tiny percent of total plastic, and that's true, and it's only, you know, a small piece. 285 00:51:12.082 --> 00:51:25.122 But it is a step, and it is actually something that shows you if you live in a place that has, um, restrictions on plastic bags, like New York City, or I live in the UK, there's way fewer plastic bags than there used to be since they introduced a fee. 286 00:51:25.162 --> 00:51:29.322 You can still get one, but you have to pay for it. Fifteen cents, something like that. 287 00:51:29.382 --> 00:51:36.412 This is powerful because it actually shows you that it's not the end of the world, and that it's actually pretty easy to live without. 288 00:51:36.442 --> 00:51:46.342 Like, I forget the numbers, like, the average American gets, like, five hundred plastic bags a year or something like that. It's crazy, and you can actually be fine with, like, I don't know, twenty plastic bags a year. 289 00:51:46.722 --> 00:51:50.862 It's, it's meaningful in itself, and those plastic bags do some harm. 290 00:51:51.302 --> 00:52:02.242 You know, birds choke on them or whatever, but it's also a signal that, like, it's actually a small step, and then, like, the automatic question is, like, the natural question is like, what do you do next? 291 00:52:02.282 --> 00:52:16.122 That's her idea, and that individual action is less about, like, which thing you put in the recycling bin and, you know, it's also an individual action to, like, lobby your, your city council or your state legislat- legislature or whatever. 292 00:52:16.342 --> 00:52:26.682 And these small steps are actually, they matter, and the reason you know they matter is that the industry is willing to, like, throw a ton of money at stopping them. You know, when people of color say- Yeah... 293 00:52:26.692 --> 00:52:34.082 "Well, does my vote even matter?" And you go like- Right... if it didn't matter, they wouldn't be trying to fucking stop you from voting- Yeah, yeah... for all of this time. Exactly. Exactly. 294 00:52:34.222 --> 00:52:44.422 No, I, I think it's great, and we are really focused on helping people turn out for local and state stuff because it-- first of all, again, it works, and two, it is a foot in the door. 295 00:52:44.482 --> 00:52:51.142 And it's very easy to normalize things in the other direction where you go, "Oh, w-we didn't need any of this." 296 00:52:51.622 --> 00:52:57.601 And also these local, these local things are, like, really contagious, and that's the other thing the industry understands. 297 00:52:57.722 --> 00:53:08.582 And, you know, I have a whole chapter about these plastic bag bans and how they-- the, the first one was passed in Suffolk County, New York, in the 1980s, and the industry fought so hard against it. 298 00:53:08.642 --> 00:53:22.762 It was eventually overturned by a court before it was ever enforced, and New York State passed, um, its own plastic bag, I can't remember if it's a, a ban or a fee off the top of my head, thirty-some years later. 299 00:53:22.772 --> 00:53:36.102 And the guy who had been the driving force behind the Suffolk County Long Island ban in, in the '80s was a state lawmaker [chuckles] in Albany, the capital, who pushed this plastic bag ban thirty years later. 300 00:53:36.162 --> 00:53:40.702 But he said those lost decades, you know, what we could have done when we were going in the other direction. 301 00:53:41.422 --> 00:53:57.382 Um, but when, when he did that in the '80s, it, it, it set something off across the country, and other localities immediately started doing it because people actually want these things, whether it's, you know, fees on bags or, or container deposit laws or, or what have you. 302 00:53:57.842 --> 00:54:07.242 They poll very well. They have really tangible, immediate beneficial effects. They're, they're not usually as inconvenient as people anticipate them being. 303 00:54:07.822 --> 00:54:12.632 So they're not only, they're powerful, but they're kind of contagious. But you have to show up. 304 00:54:13.742 --> 00:54:22.282 You do, because if you don't show up at your city council or school board or whatever it is, someone else is showing up, and that's where we are. Hundred percent. 305 00:54:22.742 --> 00:54:35.502 Early COVID, I was still in Los Angeles, and SoCalGas, another monstrosity of a place, I believe they threatened to send, like, a bus full of COVID-positive people to a meeting. 306 00:54:35.622 --> 00:54:41.982 I mean, it was just like- Jesus, oh my God. Okay... the fuck is wrong with these people? Yeah, yeah. Which-- But it's a really good lesson to go, like- Yeah... 307 00:54:42.042 --> 00:54:50.214 that they will show upAnd that's how we got it Yeah, absolutely You have to show up. And again, it can be contagious. It can be wonderful. They say sober- Absolutely... is contagious, right? We're social people. 308 00:54:50.254 --> 00:54:53.014 You look at it and your neighbor goes- And the- "What's that?" Totally. 309 00:54:53.074 --> 00:55:18.534 And this guy, Stephen Engelbreit, who was the lawmaker I was just talking about, passed the first, the country's first ban on plastic bags in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York in the 1980s, told me that he was, like, absolutely shocked when all these industry lobbyists showed up, and he said, "I never expected the industry to care about, you know, a tiny little law in a, you know, a rural suburban county- They know it is a foot in the door... 310 00:55:18.614 --> 00:55:22.834 in Long Island." It, they saw it And they are not having it. They saw that it was powerful, potentially. 311 00:55:23.094 --> 00:55:33.814 Anything else you would, again, you're a journalist, but that you would recommend or you feel like has really stuck out to you now as you're starting to really talk about the book more and more, that you feel like is 312 00:55:34.934 --> 00:55:42.314 interacting with people and making them go, like, "That's something I'm gonna go do"? I felt so much when I was writing this, was that I would talk to people about it. 313 00:55:42.354 --> 00:55:50.613 You know, I would be, like, at a, just a social whatever. Like, people, someone would ask me what I'm doing, and I would talk about this book. And they, like, so many people would say, "Oh, that sounds depressing." 314 00:55:50.654 --> 00:55:57.894 Oh- Um... hopeless. Oh, yeah, I know. I know that story. But, like... And actually, when you're in it and you're writing the book, I, I don't know, I wasn't in that so much. 315 00:55:57.954 --> 00:56:04.454 It's more like, oh, I met this amazing guy, and, like, he designed the recycling logo, and, like, this is such a cool story, and you just get... 316 00:56:04.974 --> 00:56:17.094 Or I'm like to, you know, found this, like, 200-page PDF from the 1970s of this, like, big conference with all these industry people, and there's this, like, amazing, like, garbage man who gave a speech. 317 00:56:17.174 --> 00:56:27.064 And, you know, you get sort of lost in the fun parts of writing it, I guess, and, and what you're learning and finding. But that depressing thing, I heard it so much. I totally get it because, like, I... 318 00:56:27.394 --> 00:56:33.554 It is depressing, right? And particularly with plastic, we feel so disempowered by... 319 00:56:33.594 --> 00:56:50.454 Like, even if you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna, like, not buy that water bottle even though I'm a little bit thirsty because I don't wanna throw it," like, that's meaningful, but, like, we also kind of feel like you know that's not really making a dent in the, like, 90 gazillion water bottles that get thrown out every day, whatever the number is. 320 00:56:50.494 --> 00:57:00.234 It's infuriating, and I also feel like in a weird way it's kind of empowering to really understand this, that it's not... It's actually us. 321 00:57:00.284 --> 00:57:13.334 'Cause I think so many people, the, the one thing I heard a lot was depressing, and the other word I heard a lot from, again, like, friends who were not, like, super engaged with environmental issues, it's not their main focus, was guilty. 322 00:57:13.344 --> 00:57:22.944 "I feel so guilty when I get a, um, you know, food delivery and I throw it all out." Like, I just wanna take that away because that's actually what the industry wants us to feel. 323 00:57:23.534 --> 00:57:37.974 They want us to feel sort of disempowered, like we live in this system, disposability is, you know, not negotiable, not to be questioned. It just is. And they want us to feel guilty or blame each other, right? 324 00:57:38.014 --> 00:57:46.594 Like, "Oh, Quinn, I can't believe you, you know, forgot your bags and you got all those plastic bags from the grocery store." We're blaming ourselves or we're blaming each other. 325 00:57:46.674 --> 00:57:55.494 So to me, even though y- yeah, it is depressing and, like, sometimes we all just wanna, like, curl up under the covers, like, I totally get that. I feel that way too, right? It's a lot. It's a lot. 326 00:57:55.554 --> 00:58:03.814 And plastic, it just feels horrible, right? When you see these pictures of whatever, a beach covered with, you know, trash and it keeps washing in. 327 00:58:03.854 --> 00:58:13.534 But to me, it's actually empowering to say, "Actually, it's not us and it's not your fault, Quinn, for, you know, forgetting your water bottle or whatever." We need to look at the 328 00:58:14.514 --> 00:58:23.384 who are the really the, the main actors here, which is these huge, rich, powerful corporations, unfathomably wealthy corporations. 329 00:58:23.684 --> 00:58:32.714 'Cause we kind of know that these little small bore things that we're doing, like, they feel... Like, you kind of feel like you have to do them, and I do still carry around my bags and my metal bottle and all of that. 330 00:58:32.754 --> 00:58:36.624 But, like, it feels kind of futile. We know that really already. 331 00:58:37.274 --> 00:58:51.054 And to actually shift the lens towards who is really doing this, it's kind of empowering because then it's like, okay, well, now we need to, to think about solutions and how do we fix this. 332 00:58:51.394 --> 00:59:03.794 It's pretty clear it has to happen at a political level. And but it's not about personal responsibility and, you know, your, your sort of own feelings of guilt or my feelings of guilt or whatever. 333 00:59:03.854 --> 00:59:11.554 So in a weird way, I kind of, I kind of find it certainly infuriating, but also, like, empowering to, like... You have to diagnose it correctly, right? 334 00:59:11.694 --> 00:59:19.714 It, we're, we have the wrong diagnosis right now, which is that it's our fault for, like, quotes, "demanding" plastic. 'Cause you don't demand it. 335 00:59:19.774 --> 00:59:27.514 If you go to the supermarket and you buy some bananas and they're, like, in a, in plastic- The, the shrink-wrapped- You did not demand-... individual cucumbers. Oh, don't even get me started... 336 00:59:27.554 --> 00:59:36.014 industry, the industry is always talking about consumer demand for plastic, right? But you- Yeah... demanded bananas. You didn't demand- Mm-hmm... plastic. Correct. So- Correct. 337 00:59:36.594 --> 00:59:44.434 No, your individual- I think we really need to question this... responsibility- Yeah, absolutely... is to take your ang- It's, uh, the Star Wars, like, the emperor. Like, "Good- Yeah... let the hate work." Like, great. 338 00:59:44.574 --> 00:59:51.504 Yeah, yeah. Use it and go to your city council meeting and bring somebody. Right, exactly. That is- Yeah, yeah... your responsibility. Yep. 'Cause it is going to require all of us, but we can- Yeah... 339 00:59:51.514 --> 01:00:02.114 start to put a dent in those things. Yeah. And I think that's why I think that sort of beyond plastics and, and the Judith Enck, the, the engaging people with state and local... 340 01:00:02.214 --> 01:00:05.734 Like, 'cause we all feel some amount of despair at the federal level right now. 341 01:00:05.774 --> 01:00:15.534 It's pretty clear that the Trump administration is not gonna be ch- you know, enacting measures to deal with any of these problems, but, you know, the, the opposite obviously. 342 01:00:15.754 --> 01:00:27.514 But actually, the local level r- really matters, and that's where a lot of plastics action has happened, and it's contagious and it, it's meaningful. I don't wanna keep you much longer. 343 01:00:27.534 --> 01:00:35.024 What are some books you're reading these days? I'm reading this great book right now called North Woods, and I'm seeing it everywhere, so I think it's, like, maybe- Okay... one of the big books right now. 344 01:00:35.494 --> 01:00:43.774 It's fiction, and it's set, like, on this plot of land in, I guess it's Massachusetts, like, in New England. And it- Oh, I heard about this. It st- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 345 01:00:44.344 --> 01:00:50.324 And at first it starts with this couple who are, who escape from, like, a, a Puritan colony. 346 01:00:50.394 --> 01:00:56.510 They run away into the woods, and they're pursued by, like-The, the Puritans or whatever, and then they finally, like, make their... 347 01:00:56.899 --> 01:01:03.670 And it's, it, the first passage is written in this sort of, like, s- little bit obscure, like, you know, it's a first person kind of like- Mm... 348 01:01:03.730 --> 01:01:09.440 old style spellings, and you're a little bit, like, ooh, this is gonna be a little dense if the whole book- Yes... is like that. 349 01:01:09.470 --> 01:01:18.980 And you think you're gonna follow the story of this couple, but then actually in the next chapter, it's like, I don't know, 30, 40 years later, you're following the land. Um- Mm. It's cool... 350 01:01:18.980 --> 01:01:26.590 it's like this little patch of l- I didn't really mean to give an environmental example. It's not necessarily, but it's just how I- No, it's fine. I get it. Those, those- I'm enjoying. Yeah. 351 01:01:26.630 --> 01:01:36.150 You're follow- We're fo- I think we're following all the people who are gonna live on this, this little piece of land over the centuries, and it starts in, I don't know, the 1600s, and who knows where it's gonna end. 352 01:01:36.190 --> 01:01:45.410 I'm not that far in now. I'm probably 100 pages in. But, uh, yeah, it's a really good read. I recommend it. North Woods. I can't remember the author off the top of my head. Author is Daniel Mason. There you go. 353 01:01:45.850 --> 01:01:55.630 Uh- Daniel Mason. Yeah. That's awesome. That's really good. Yeah. Also, I g- I got another one I just finished listening to. Oh, please. I think this was Forty Hours, biography of, of Mark Twain. 354 01:01:56.110 --> 01:02:03.090 Oh, is it the- By Ron Chernow... I gave it to my mother-in-law for Christmas- Yes... but I haven't read it myself. It's gr- Is it good? It's great. Okay. Yeah, it was terrific. It was terrific. I listened to it. 355 01:02:03.150 --> 01:02:09.990 You know, no rush if you're listening to Forty Hours. You can't be like, "I've gotta finish by next week." But, you know, it took a couple months. 356 01:02:10.030 --> 01:02:20.190 That's how I felt when the, it was about 10 years ago, the, the, the, the Grant biography came out, and I'd been so excited about it for so long, and then it showed up, and I was like, "Oh my God, it's not, it's-" [laughs] Yeah. 357 01:02:20.250 --> 01:02:29.550 Maybe there's a little temptation to wanna kind of get lost in, in history a little bit and- I'm with you... in the past, but, you know- How we got here... we, we all need the things that recharge us, right? So. Yes. 358 01:02:29.610 --> 01:02:39.150 It's, I'm usually- Yeah... between, like, a Grant biography or dragons of some kind. Okay. Um- That's great... whatever works. Beth, thank you so much for all your work on these vital things. 359 01:02:39.170 --> 01:02:45.140 And again, I really appreciate your perspective of- Yeah... you know, these motherfuckers. Thank you. And the nuance. Yeah. Thank you for- It's very important... 360 01:02:45.210 --> 01:02:50.400 caring and, and sharing the, sharing the, the righteous fury. [laughs] It's very important. I, I appreciate it. 361 01:02:50.400 --> 01:03:01.000 And I'm so grateful for your, your interest and your coverage of, you know, this and so many other, like, really big, important, important- I'm trying. The point is, like- Yeah... to expose it and then go- Yeah... 362 01:03:01.010 --> 01:03:09.470 we can actually do things about these things. Yeah. Yeah. So. I love that. [outro music] That's it for this week's conversation. 363 01:03:09.930 --> 01:03:23.450 For more conversations, scroll back in the feed or visit podcast.importantnotimportant.com to search by name, topic, whatever. Thanks for sharing, thanks for leaving a review, and thanks for giving a shit. 364 01:03:25.369 --> 01:03:45.350 [outro music]