This event was part of The Fall of Plastics, a 3-part lecture series that addressed the need to radically reduce plastics in our lives.
To help us envision the future of plastics, Pete Myers was invited to speak with Host and Producer of Trace Material, Burgess Brown in HML’s first ever live taping of Trace Material.
In this episode Pete makes his argument for a new set of R’s: rethink, redesign, reform opposed to the familiar 3 R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle) and explored the myth of plastics recycling.
About Pete Myers
Pete is the founder and chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences (which publishes the famous Environmental Health News) and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. Pete has decades of experience in the chemistry of plastics, particularly with a class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors––a term he coined in the early 90s and explored in the best selling book he co-authored called “Our Stolen Future.”
There are lots of poor communities that live downwind of plastic production facilities who are suffering horrific health costs. It's not fair." - Pete Myers
Contributors
Burgess Brown
Podcast Producer
Full Bio
Burgess is a media developer and urbanist from Macon, Georgia. He has a bachelor’s degree in Media Studies from Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism and a master’s degree in Theories of Urban Practice from Parsons School of Design at The New School. His background is in public radio and engagement focused journalism. As the Community Manager for Internews’ Listening Post Collective, he developed innovative journalism projects across the country aimed at better addressing the information needs of underserved communities. Now, as a researcher and podcast producer at the Lab, he uses storytelling to make material health accessible and relevant to a general audience. Through Trace Material, the Lab’s podcast, he seeks to uncover the ways the materials we surround ourselves with have shaped our culture, health, and environment.