[music playing] this presentationis brought to you by arizona state university'sjulie ann wrigley global institute of sustainabilityand a generous investment by julie ann wrigley.
wood branding iron india, wrigley lecture series-- worldrenowned thinkers and problem solvers engage thecommunity in dialogues to address sustainabilitychallenges. good afternoon, everyone.
is that rather loud? so welcome everybody. my name is lauren[? cubie ?], and i manage events andcommunity engagement for the julie ann wrigley globalinstitute of sustainability. and i'm so thrilled to welcomeyou all to our first wrigley talk in the semester,in the academic year and beyond excited that our veryfirst wrigley speaker this year is dianna cohen, who's a localto global activist in the fight
against plastic pollution. so our weekly lectureseries on sustainability, in case you haven'theard, is funded through the generous supportof julie ann wrigley. and it brings worldrenowned-- not just thinkers, but doers and problemsolvers, to asu's campus. and wrigley speakers are chosennot by some committee on high. they're chosen by studentsand staff, faculty, and undergraduate andgraduate students.
in the case of dianna,caitlyn [? seppi ?], who's a graduate student in the schoolof sustainability approached us and gave a full-throttledrecommendation for dianna, wanting her to appear--had seen her ted talk and was so inspired. so we're delighted tohave dianna here today. but as part of ourwrigley series, we bring the speakershere to engage the community insustainable solutions,
and to kind of ground truthour program, our educational and research program andbusiness practices program. and they do more than justconcluding one hour speech with question andanswer followed by a delicious reception. they do a lot more than that. they meet with studentsand activists and faculty, and dianna has been doing that. the past 24 hours, it'sbeen a rather whirlwind.
last night we hadthis wonderful dinner at nush, which is anincredible restaurant. and there's the localowner, nona [? savari ?], and we had thiswonderful meal outdoors. the flowers and music andincredible vegan food and we were celebrating deanna's visit. but also celebratingbusinesses like nona's, who have refused plasticsince they were conceived, since theirbusiness was conceived.
so we salute you, thechampion, you in the community who are doing the right thing. so on wrigley days,though, our speakers meet informally withfaculty members, students. you've met with studentleaders last night and student leadersin the afternoon. and we met with the waltonsustainable solutions folks. it's been a really full day. and tomorrow you're goingto go to charlie's lab
and learn more aboutmicrobead research here. so we're justthrilled that there's been such direct engagementwith so many people. so i invite you to stayafter her talk for question and answers from theaudience, and we'll have a lovely reception. and please note thisevent is zero waste, so make sure that you knowthat your napkin, your food's all compostable, theplates are compostable.
and please observethe compost signs. now i'd like to introduce alanalevine-- levine, excuse me-- where you are, alana? there you are. asu's recycling programmanager and assistant director of the zero wasteproject at asu, and she's going tointroduce to us our very special speaker, dianna cohen. [applause]
i'm so glad everybody couldmake it this afternoon. welcome to asu if youhaven't been here before. so i'd like to start witha quote from jimmy carter, and that is, "like musicand art, love of nature is a common languagethat can transcend political andsocial boundaries." and dianna, i'd like tothink that your art actually is doing both, transcendingand also creating the markers for what weneed to pay attention to.
and with that, i wouldlike to introduce our very special guest, dianna cohen. dianna is a multimediavisual artist, a painter and a curator. she has her bachelorof arts from ucla. she's a ted speaker, and iwould highly recommend it if you haven't seen it yet. she's also co-founder of theplastic pollution coalition which is working to help endour cycle of plastic use.
they increase awarenessand understanding of the problem andsustainable solutions. and they empower action toeliminate the negative impact of plastics. dianna is actually bestknown for her two and three dimensional works usingrecycled plastic bags. and i highly recommendgoogling her, so i did that. some really amazing stuff. so with that, i welcome dianna.
hi, you guys. i actually feel embarrassed byyou saying that you googled me. i think there'ssomething about that that sounds kind of intimate. [laughter] so i'm not really in the habitof giving particularly canned talks, and it's been a whirlwindsince i landed yesterday afternoon of conversationswith students and faculty here, which has beenincredibly enlightening for me
and i'm so gratefuland very honored to be invited to comeand speak to you guys. and i hope that inthese 45 minutes i can convey somethingthat i'm incredibly passionate about toyou, but also that i can talk about for about aweek and a half straight. and i actually think thati work on it in my sleep. so actually i can attest tothe fact that i do work on it in my sleep.
that said, i think if i pressthis arrow it will take us to the next picture. i'm not only going to talk aboutwhat was just on the screen. this idea of bansand campaigns, etc. but for me, everythingis interconnected. so i might also walkaround a little bit we might have tostretch in the middle. this is an image that i justshot at a beach in taiwan. it's near taipei, and i was justthere for an ocean conference.
and there were twointeresting things about that ocean conference. one was to be in taiwanfor the first time. there's a very large amountof plastic pollution washed up on all of the beachesthat i was taken to see. and i'm not sure forpeople who are based here in phoenix, arizona or tempe. and in arizona, ifyou feel that you have a strong connection to theocean and to the sea or not.
i'm actually kind ofcurious if you guys would raise your hands. how many people inthe room actually feel like they'reconnected to the ocean? that's a good amount. so that's wonderful if you are. plastic pollution is obviouslyan issue that not only affects the ocean, but it affectsour rivers, our lakes, it affects the environmentthat we live in,
our naturalenvironment around us. and it also affectsand impacts animals, and it affects usand human health. i'd like to talk aboutthe problem for a second and you guys can justlook at me and give me a signal if i'mtelling you something that you all already know. but part of the problem isthat we live in this world and we've become used to acertain kind of convenience
and consumption, andthis idea that single use and disposable itemsmake our lives easier and give us more timeto do other things. and i think that withregards to, in particular, plastic and polystyrene,what is becoming apparent is that that conveniencecomes at a cost. and i don't know thatwe've really yet calculated what the cost of that is, again,to our health, animal health, the environment, the ocean.
but it's reallysomething to consider. this is an image that ishot at breakfast last year at the first ever internationalzero waste conference that i was invited to. this wasn't at the actualconference, in all fairness. the people who put on theconference did a great job. this was with a groupof about 15 people who were speaking and presentingat the conference on our way to the convention center wherewe were doing the conference.
we stopped at a localbreakfast place, and this was my neighborwho was sitting next to me. this was the leftover fromtheir breakfast experience. i kind of went theextra mile, went up, and with my not tooperfect spanish had a conversation with thebartender and the people working behind the counterand explained to them that i am allergic toplastic, and i was really wondering if itmight be possible
for them to give me a realceramic cup for my coffee and a ceramic plate. and then i pulled outsome bamboo utensils that i carry everywhere withme like my wah-wah blanket that i have augmented witha reusable, stainless steel straw. so i am like alwaysready, basically. i am a camper. i'm a camper of the world.
i included this one image. it's just a detailfrom an art piece that i made that theactual piece is about two by three feet, andthe title of the piece is "recycle man."and recycle man is an own image that i foundprinted on a plastic bag. i started workingwith plastic bags to make my artwork as my primarymaterial in 1990 or 1989. no, earlier than that.
19-- yeah. 1989. i think i've beenworking with this as my material forabout 25 years, maybe a little bit longer. when i first startedworking with plastic it was because iwas really excited about plastic and plastic bags. plastic bags come in allthese awesome colors,
and there are allthese cool things printed on them-- interestingfonts and words and language. and a lot of times, images. oftentimes images ofplants or animals. i was reallyfascinated by some bags that i found in belgium thathave botanical images of plants printed on them. and you get them fromthe homeopathic pharmacy. and they had the latin nameof the plant on each one.
i thought those werereally, really cool. so i had already beenworking with brown paper bags prior to that and kindof deconstructing them and gluing them andsewing them back together and using thestitching in the pieces as a kind of drawing element. and so when i got this ideato combine plastic with them, i had this total eureka momentwhere i was like, wow plastic. it's such a coolloaded material.
it represents the future. and i started thinking aboutthat sequence in the graduate when dustin hoffman getspulled aside by the man at the end at this party,it's the last sequence in the film, who says to himson, i've got one word for you. yes sir, he says. yes sir? what is it? yes, sir?
he says plastic. there's a greatfuture in plastics. so yes, there is agreat future in plastic, and i would just like to clarifytwo things to this group. one, i am not a scientist. i'm a visual artist. and two, i think plastic is acompletely remarkable material. i think plastic is avery valuable material. and i think that when we use itand design things with it which
are intended to become obsolete5 or 10 minutes after we've used them that we areusing a valuable material and an incrediblyirresponsible way. thank you. this is another image that itook on the beach in taiwan three weeks ago. and this is aftera beach cleanup that was conductedby 46 nonprofits and a bunch of students.
and this is what they didn'tcollect that was on the beach. and as i walkedalong the beach there were multiple tidelines that were just full of this kindof plastic confetti. now in all fairness tothe people in taiwan, who are incredible, they havea very large fishing fleet. it's a big industryfor them there, and so oftentimes a lot ofthe plastic that you see will be generated by theirfishing fleet, the fishing
boats, or by likeaqua culture projects that they're doing justoff the coast or coastally. but i like this pictureand it's interesting to me because there waspolystyrene in that picture, there's all differentkinds of plastics. what i learned, and this wascalled the cross straits ocean cleanup conference, is thata lot of the plastic things that are washing up--again, mainly single use and disposable plasticitems-- are generated not just
from taiwan, but they'realso coming from china and they're comingfrom south korea and they're coming from japan. and it's kind of what'sgoing on with the currents and the systems there. i'm a co-founder ofplastic pollution coalition and i'd just like to say thatalthough i feel that i'm trying to convey a lot of stuff andtalk about it with you guys, in working with plastic asmy material for my artwork
i was very slow on theuptake to get the messages that i began to learn fromworking with the material. and i say this because i'dsay some of my work started fissuring or breakinginto smaller pieces-- some of the bags that i usedafter about the first eight years. and at that point ithought oh, awesome. it's ephemeral. it's organic.
it's like us. it's like a plant, it's like aflower, it's like a puppy dog, it's like a cat. and so i started lookinginto it and realized that's in fact not whathappens with plastic. plastic may photo degrade orheat degrade into smaller bits, or by being chewed up orchurned or within nature slammed against rocks, draggedon coral systems, etc. but it actually is stillplastic and it just
breaks into smallerand smaller pieces. i'm really excited to goto [? charley's ?] lab tomorrow because justin the last two years i've come to learn alot of new information about microplasticsand microbeads, and i'll share someof that with you guys. anyway, we co-foundedplastic pollution coalition in the end of 2009. we're a global coalition.
we're working to stopplastic pollution. our focus is on single useand disposable plastics. and we have grown to beover 400 other organizations and businessesaround the world who are all looking at this issue. and one of my proudest momentsso far in my involvement in helping create theorganization was the day that we received an email fromthe girl scouts of america and the teamsters.
and they both joined thecoalition the same day. so how many people in the roomhave heard of the great pacific garbage patch? ok, for those of you whohaven't, the great pacific garbage patch is a naturallyoccurring ocean gyre system. it's created bycurrents and wind currents and ocean currents. and it is also referred to asthe northeastern pacific gyre. it is not an islandof trash that we
can sail out to as i originallybelieved that it was. in fact, it is in allof the water strata. it is on the ocean floor. a study just cameout at the beginning of this year, theplus one study, which estimated the amountof plastic that is now being found in the ocean. but we don't have acomplete number yet. that is just reallyan approximation based
on the evidence that exists. when i first heard about thegrapes of a garbage patch my original reactionto that was we've gotta go out there andclean this thing up. and i began to askpeople who had actually been sailing through it,or-- you can't actually sail because part ofit is the doldrums, but motoring through it,taking trawl samples, doing visual observations.
and now we work withabout 12 different groups that are part ofthe coalition that do do regular trawlsamples and are studying plastic pollution in the ocean. five gyres and[? algolita ?] are probably two of the mostwell-known known groups that are part of the coalition. they have now done trawlsamples and studies in the atlantic ocean,the indian ocean.
they've gone throughall five major oceans. but there are 11 gyre systemson the face of the earth, and they all haveplastic in them. we've actually also now foundplastic and plastic particulate in ice core samples. so plastic is prettymuch everywhere. and unfortunately, thisas sue cohn rockefeller, who's a documentary filmmaker. and this is a presentationshe gave earlier this year
at a women's conference inchina in beijing talking, as well, about plasticpollution in the ocean. but this is the mouth ofthe los angeles river. i live in losangeles, california, and the vice mayor ofthe city of long beach said that they spend$2 million a year trying to stop all ofthis plastic pollution from washing out intothe pacific ocean. you can see a lot of it is alsostyrofoam, well polystyrene.
she said she wouldmuch rather spend that money on infrastructurefor their city, including their schoolsand their fire department and their police department. but at the moment they spendit on machinery and netting to try and catch this stuff andstop it from going out to sea. again, our single useplastics are not only a problem in terms ofingestion for animals, but they're also a problemfor entanglement of animals.
and animals on land andanimals in the ocean. this is a photographfrom the mediterranean. it's from dubrovnikin former yugoslavia. i guess it's croatia now, whichis a beautiful place where people go to vacation,and it was sent to me by a friend on a family vacationlast summer with his family. this is an image that wastaken by robert simmons, he's a professor and a scientistat georgia state university. this is a more recentimage, and he's
been tailing these kind ofmicroscopic photographic images where he's documentingmicrofibers and microplastics. let me just takea moment actually to talk about plastics,because when i first started learning aboutthis issue a few years ago, we would refer to microplastics. and when we did, what wewere really talking about is we were talking aboutpre-consumer plastic nurdles, which are tiny little ballsor pellets of plastic.
at this point, i've come torealize that we're actually talking about several differentkinds of micro plastics and microbeads, so whatwe're really talking about is the pre-consumerplastic nurdle, so that's before the plastic hasbeen shaped or molded or formed into something. a lot of those escape andthey end up in the ocean. they end up in rivers. they end up on aroundtrain tracks and places
where trucks are movingcargo and things like that. but we're also talking aboutmicrofibers which rinse out when we wash ourclothing if we have any synthetics in our clothing. so those, it's turningout, are a problem. they're really bigproblem, actually. i think they may actuallybe the most common type of microplastic that is beingseen when people are doing sampling of microplastics.
we're also seeing microbeads,which you may have heard about. i think it might have an image. these are microbeads. so microbeads areteeny, tin-- almost imperceptible to the eye--little bits of plastic which are used in a numberof different toothpastes and facial scrubs as a kindof abrasive ingredient. and i'm really proud to saythat students-- i may actually have included thema little later--
but students atucla in los angeles just got the campus to agreeto ban products with microbeads in them on campus. so they're aboutto phase those out, which i think is reallyexciting and attests to the power of a smallgroup of students on a campus to actually bringabout some change. and by the way,these microbeads are being found in lake erie andthe great lakes-- they're
being found everywhere. and again, they'rebeing ingested by the entire marinechain, as well. so if anybody here eats seafoodor enjoys-- yeah, basically anything from the sea. bivalves, mussels, oysters,clams, lobsters, crabs, you can be pretty sure thatthere is some uptake of these into those animals. i wanted to talk a little bitabout the success of bans,
because-- have youguys heard about what's going on with microbead bans? we were just able,actually, to ban microbeads for the state of california,which is super exciting. there is an internationalcampaign called the beat the bead campaign. it was started by anotherone of our coalition members that is based inthe netherlands. they're called theplastic soup foundation.
and they have been very active,but part of what they do is they go directlyto l'oreal and to these different big productcompanies, beauty product companies, and present them withthis information and science and ask them i thinkin a very kind way if they would considerremoving these things from their products. and they have gottensome buy in from them, but now they're alsotalking with the eu
about a straight out ban. this was an exciting day, it wasabout two months ago, i think. right sandy? yeah. let's talk about bagbans for a second. so it's interesting, because thelast time i was here in phoenix was actually just a couple daysbefore some language slipped into an energy bill that causeda preemptive ban of plastic bag bans for the state of arizona.
we're not really sure howthat happened so quickly. people were paying attentionto it, but it just snuck up and it happened really fast. i'm just going tosay to you guys i also had thishappen when i was in atlanta, georgia in march. actually, it wasvoted on the day that we were conducting atwo day symposium called the plastic gyre atgeorgia state university
and at the center for diseasecontrol, which was so ironic. i don't think we could havetimed it more perfectly. but due to a lot ofletter writing and calls and anger from people whowere part of the symposium that we were partof producing, we were able to actually blockthat bill and defeat it. this is a tacticthat-- oh, first i think i should just ask. is there anyone who works forthe plastic industry who's
here? raise your hand. no? ok. usually they sitin the back row. this is an image,actually, from raja ampat that my friend myfriend greg stone took, and he's the head of the marinedivision for conservation international.
raja ampat is a beautiful,pristine ecosystem where people go to havelike exotic beautiful diving experiences, and hecame across a chewed up plastic bag floatingby him on a dive, and he also sent me animage of a plastic cup with a plastic top and apurple plastic straw that looked like it had come likefrom starbucks or something down the road. so i usually includethis image just
to remind me that it's not justthis idea of a gyre of plastic that's out somewhere in theocean that i'm concerned about, but it's the gyre ofplastic that i see when i go to the supermarket. and it's the jarof plastic that i see when i look inmy own refrigerator or at a friend's housein the refrigerator. and it's the gyre ofplastic and the chemicals that are used to manufactureplastic, the plasticizers,
the additives, the [inaudible],the bpa, the bpd, the bpz, the phtalates,these chemicals that are added to manufacturethe plastic which leach into our foods, andpotentially into our bodies and have been linked to aslew of human illnesses, including obesityand diabetes, lower sexual function, sterility,infertility, and the list goes on. i'll talk about ita little bit more.
but that the gyre thati'm worried about. it's the gyre that'spotentially in you and in me. so there are all these amazinggroups that are starting, these different things. plastic-free july andplastic bag free world. and there's a wonderfulyoung anti-plastic pollution activist named activist abby. that's what she calls herself. and she lives inlakeside, illinois.
and she makes theselittle means all the time. not that i'm suggesting thatanyone or any young people should put plastic bags overtheir head, because i'm not. but she makesthese kind of memes and puts them outin her social media. and i like that she ismotivated in this way, and she's really kindof taking it on herself. she's 13. and she has ended up speakingin front of their city hall,
and she is now workingwith the mayor of the town that she lives in todevelop a proclamation to make a declarationthat their city is going to become plastic bag free. and she's 13. and i also reallyhave seen good results with incentivizationprograms where people are rewarded for behavior change. so people are rewarded forshowing up with a reusable bag.
they're rewarded when theygo to starbucks or somewhere and bring their owncup and say, hi, i'd like to order acoffee or a drink. could you please putit in my own cup? i've seen very good resultswith that-- or we have. and i hope to encourage-- we do,as plastic pollution coalition, hope to encourage and helpempower more people to bring about incentivization programsso that we're really rewarding people for this kind of behaviorchange that we're looking for,
which is basically massiveviral behavioral change on a world-- a global scale. that's what we're looking for. i liked this sign,which is also part of what you need to do when youwant to change something, which is educate peopleand do some outreach and have some kindof campaign or notice to let people knowthat something is going to be changing.
and perhaps why, why it's goingto be changing, and figure out smart ways to engagethem so that people can feel like they'recontributing to the solution. because i thinkwe live in a world where we wake up everyday and there's so much bad news about everything. and i feel like apretty empathic person, so i'm sure many people in thisroom get upset about things that i learn about, likeglobal warming climate change
i find very upsetting. the question is whatcan you do about it? and i feel like when it comes tothe issue of plastic pollution, and particularly, singleuse and disposable plastics, we all have the powerat whatever level we want to be part of thesolution to get involved and to make achange, even if it's a small change apersonal change. i also think i'm a perfectexample of a person who
didn't even get it right away. it took me a long time justto get messages from them the medium that iwas working with and my own materials tobegin to use reusable bags or to think tomyself, you know i should make a pointof always bringing some kind ofreusable water bottle with me when i'm traveling,when i'm out somewhere. and now i find that one ofthe easiest things i can do
is bring a reusable cup with me. and i do that all the time. sometimes i'll tuck itin my purse or my bag. sometimes i'll even bringit out to art openings or to gatherings orparties at people's homes. because you just neverknow, and i don't really want to be rude if i goto someone else's house. i'd rather just have my own cup. and if they're servingeverything in plastic
i'd rather just pull out myown cup and have it in that. so again, it's a littlebit like camping. this has been a campaign thatwe were running in california, but it's totally applicableto the rest of the world. and it was justpeople photographing their own reusablebags or baskets and posting them on twitter,tumblr, or facebook, instagram with thehashtag #mybag. super simple campaign.
it's something that weused when we were fighting for the third timesince i've woken up to this issue to tryand ban plastic bags in the state of california. i think you guys might beaware that we did ban plastic bags for the stateof california, but what you mightnot be aware of is that the plastic industryspent about $3 million gathering 800,000 signaturesto get a referendum up
on the bill. and they were able to block theimplementation of our bag ban which was supposed togo into effect july 1st, they blocked it for 14 months. so it will be voted on againeven though we passed it as a law and governor jerrybrown signed it into law. it will be voted onagain in november i included these just forfun because i was really impressed that thecity of palm springs
had some messaging that theywere using to encourage people to bring their own bags. that brooklyn was doing that,about bringing a reusable bags with you. and the image at the top onthe right is from trader joe's. so trader joe's and wholefoods and a few other companies that have marketsare actually trying to incentivize people bringingtheir own reasonable bags by giving you a $0.05 discount.
it's not very much, but if youbring a lot of bags with you it can add up. i usually bringlike 10 bags with me because i use little bags toput produce and things like that in. if i go to thosekinds of markets my own produce bagsand they give me $0.05 off on everysingle one, so i save $1. kind of feels good.
i like to include this imageof my friend charlotte. she just turned 11, butin this picture she's 7. and she was theyoungest speaker at our tedxgreatpacificgarbagepatchgreat that we put togetherin the end of 2010. she had been living on a boatwith her family for a couple years and she just reallywanted to get up and talk about how muchplastic pollution she had seen on differentbeaches and coastal areas
around the world. it's kind of amazingbecause she had just turned seven at the time. so now i want totalk about solutions. one of the solutions that wefound that's very interesting is a pilot projectthat we started, and the idea is refill programs. so the initial onethat we started is on the left hand side andwe started it with bonnaroo.
i don't know how many peopleare familiar with bonnaroo, but it's the largest musicfestival in the united states. it takes place inmanchester, tennessee. it's about an hour and ahalf outside of nashville. it's usually sometimein early june. they've got this hugeexpanse, like a big park and area where people camp for,i think, four or five days. and they decided to launcha pilot project with us. so even though80,000 people attend,
when we began theproject last year, which is calledrefill revolution, they purchased 7,500 foodgrade stainless steel cups, kind of like thisone, and branded them. they were green, that kindof chartreuse green color, and they said refillrevolution on them. and they offered them forsale at every point of sale where they had beer on top. i did have some kids complainto me who were underage
and were not able to buythose because they could only get them with abeer, and i thought that seemed a little bit unfair. but they had a very goodresponse to the program. and what ended uphappening is they sold all the cups out in abouta day and a half and then people started stealingthem from each other. sandy, do you have thatlittle strappy thing? yes.
i just wanted to showyou guys-- actually, can you give it tome with your cup? so this is what they endedup using for bonnaroo. they made a littlestrap like this. it's a little kindof neoprene strap, and you can put yourreusable cup in it. and then it has a carabiner. and so you could hookit on to your jeans, you could hook iton to your shorts,
you could attach it to yourbackpack or your fanny pack or whatever youhad at the festival and then have it with you. unless you havea top on your cup i do not recommenddoing this when you have liquid in the cup. but anyway, this was avery successful program and people really liked it. so for this year, 2015,in june they scaled it up.
and they scaled it up andthey ordered this year 13,500 stainless steel cups. still not that much when youthink about 80,000 people going to a musicfestival, but we have very greataspirations in hopes that they eventuallywill scale it up so that it becomes eitherpart of the ticket price or something like that,and then everyone coming in will use one.
when they did itlast year-- we don't have the numbersfrom this year yet-- they were able to save40,000 plastic compostable cups by offeringthese reusable cups. and they also offered these kindof small versions of the steel bottles that are abouthalf the size of this one. and by using those--they offered 13,000 last year for sale--they were able to save 300,000 plastic water bottles.
the kind of coolthing about this is rolling stone actuallywrote an article about it. so it was a way to shareit with more people. and at the sametime that bonnaroo was happening last year--there's a really big music festival in england, i'mspacing out on the name. i'll remember in a minute. and they actuallymade an announcement that they were going to design afood grade stainless steel pint
cup and begin to offerit and that they wanted to work towards makingtheir music festival zero waste, which ithink is remarkable. what happened justrecently-- i can't see the date on theselfridges article, but just in the lastcouple months, selfridges, which is a big departmentstore in great britain and based in london,they made a commitment and decided that they weregoing to stop offering
plastic bottled water for sale. so in my opinion, theseare all exciting things. this is the cup thatbonnaroo offered this year, so they changedit to a new color. and again, was a verysuccessful program this year. although i don't havethe numbers, but they did scale it up. this is a programcalled my pint and me. it was originally calledmy cup and me, now it's
called my pint and me, which waslaunched by the santa barbara bowl in santa barbara,california, through, i believe, a grant. it was started with themusician jack johnson and his wife kim johnson, andthey installed a hydration station that had multiplespigots so that people could refill their bottlesor cups and then they began offering thesespecial steel cups at shows and even co-brandingsome of them
with artists that wereperforming at the bowl. and they've had very goodresponse to this so far. so things likethis give me hope. now i'd like to talk aboutart and communication, because i think that'sreally important when we're at a university campus,particularly a school like this that has a wholesustainability program and all of these tremendous clubs,and students and faculty that are really championingsustainability
and are working on ways to staveoff and remedy and alleviate and lessen climate change. art can be a very importanttool that we can use. so this is an art exhibition. i have one piece in the show. but it's a traveling / itopened originally in alaska at the beginning of last yearat the anchorage museum of art. it was based on a groupof artists and scientists who went out anddid an expedition
in the fjords of alaska. and it also made a filmwhich is available that you can see that nat geo produced. it's won a couple of awards. i believe the filmis also called gyre-- the plastic ocean. and it's a travelingexhibition where all of the work inthe show is made by artists who are addressingthe issue of plastic pollution.
it includes imageslike, i don't know if you're familiar with chrisjordan or susan middleton's images of albatross,laysan albatross carcasses and juvenilelaysan albatross that have died on midway atoll inthe middle of the pacific ocean with their stomachs fullof plastic, and literally recognizable pieces ofplastic, like bic lighters. i mean the brands. the bottle tops ofcoca-cola bottles,
toothbrushes, barrettes,combs-- just crazy stuff, that the parent birds whogo there to mate and to nest and have theirbabies every year, literally in the middleof the pacific ocean, fly out around theseislands looking for food. they collect this as foodand feed it to their babies and their babies diewith their stomachs full. and for me thesekinds of images are very powerful becausethey're a metaphor for us.
they're a metaphor for the factthat we're stuffing ourselves full of plastic and chemicalsthat leach from plastic and we don't knowthat we're doing it. so art is a very powerful tool. social media is avery powerful tool. i would say thatthe reason that we were able to createplastic pollution coalition is not because we had money. it was really just because wehad four very passionate people
who then reached out toa number of other groups who were also lookingat this issue, but you'd be surprisedhow many different kinds of diverse groupsmake up the coalition. natracare, which is a naturalorganic tampon company that emanated from great britainand is also based in canada, wrote us a letter and joinedour coalition the first year that we were formed. we also have the breast cancerfund and lesscancer.org,
nontoxic revolution,keep a breast foundation, environmental working group,healthy child, healthy world, and then a lot ofgroups that are working on ocean sustainability,like mission blue, conservation international,greenpeace spain, a lot of groups that areworking on turtle habitat restoration from panama,costa rica, little islands in the greek islands and theionian sea, turtle sense-- all these different groups allover the world who, i think,
prior to us creatinga coalition, a lot of the people that i'vespoken to from these groups felt that they were justkind of punching in the dark. they didn't really realizethat this was a global problem, and they didn'trealize that there were a lot of other groupsworking on this as well. so that's somethingthat as a coalition we've been able to helpfacilitate a lot of connections between different groups.
i'll leave you with thisimage, but i actually have a couple of the things iwanted to talk to you about. one of them is we have anumber of different projects that we are focused on, and oneis called plastic free schools. and that is a project wherewe are in the process, i'm actually going toask my colleague who came with me from thebay area, sandra curtis, just to stand up. that's sandy, everybody.
so sandy is helping oversee whatwe're doing with plastic free schools. and a part of thatproject is a project where we invite schools to joinour coalition in the same way that we invite all groups andbusinesses and individuals to join our coalition. because basically i aimreally, really high. and i would, again, likeeverybody in the world to get on board with this.
i feel like we needall hands on deck and that everyone can dosomething, even if you just go home this eveningand decide that you're going to stop buying plasticbottled water at your house and maybe, if you need tofilter the water where you live, put a little filteron your kitchen sink or find a portable one. but just make asmall commitment. maybe you're going to startbringing a reusable bag
with you, whatever that is. and if you want to go furtherwith plastic free schools, what we're looking at it,we're in the process of creating a matrixthat will allow us to share best practicesand curriculum that have been developed by a number of ourdifferent coalition members in the spirit of being able toshare them with everybody else. now some of this curriculumis in other languages, and so one of the thingswe're also working on
is how do we find ways totranslate that or share it, but to make it available. and we also haveour basic one sheet which is available inenglish, but we also have it-- i just founda copy of it in arabic that someone hadtranslated for us. but we have it in spanish,catalan, italian, portuguese, greek, and mandarin. so it's a process andit's come together
through the goodwill and the heart and the work of a lotof different people. another project is ourplastic free events. and part of what weprovide on that page are these guides,like the one sheets that i'm describingto you that you can download fromour website, which is plasticpollutioncoalition.org. but we also have beendeveloping basic guidelines.
our most popularis actually called "how to start a bagban in your town." and i have met a lotof people, actually i met some folks fromketchum, idaho who told me that they had launched a projectto ban plastic bags in ketchum. and when i asked themhow they got the idea to do that they said that theyhad seen it on our website. we just last week addedhow to start a polystyrene ban in your town.
and that was through thework of some folks who were doing waste managementin new york state and have been helping work onthe legislation for new york city. i can talk about thesubject for like literally a week and a half straight. i'm really excited about itbecause i see the possibility that we can change things, andchange them relatively quickly. and i'd just like tomake it really clear,
i also think thatthis particular issue and solutions andalternatives to it is like the wild west right now. i think that thereis a lot of money to be made for the personwho comes up with a way to replace the black plasticsheeting and white plastic sheeting that's used in asiafor big ag and agriculture. if you can comeup with something that actually is biodegradableor that's made with paper,
you're going to makea million dollars-- a billion dollars ifyou can figure out how to really make it work. i also just thinkthere's a lot of room for different kindsof innovation, but i think that that innovationcan come from things that we already use that already exist. and in my childhoodgrowing up in hollywood the milkman delivered milk.
and i lived in anapartment in glass bottles. and we washed those glassbottles and sent them back and then they wererefilled again. i don't think thatwe need to wait for some kind of magic thingthat we haven't come up with yet. i feel like there aresolutions, maybe some of them are more traditionalor old school, maybe it's as simple asstoring your food at home
in a ceramic bowl andputting a saucer on top of it like my grandma used todo and i now do sometimes. but i just have tosay it's challenging and it's fun totry and figure out how to reduce yourpersonal plastic footprint, how to reduce your plasticfootprint at home, at school, at your kid's school, at thiscampus, in your place of work, in your department, inyour office, at your club. it is totally worthwhile to do.
and i also wouldlike to tell you that i think that single useplastic is very insidious. it didn't escape my awarenessthat as the refreshments were being brought out theywere being brought out covered with saran wrap. what could we be usinginstead of saran wrap? could we use, even thoughit would be plastic, could we use the denseplastic shells or something like that that can be usedhundreds and hundreds of times
versus covering things withsomething that basically is instant garbage. the minute it waspulled out that sheet became instant garbage. and i really feel thatway about straws, as well. i don't know howmany of you have seen this video that kind ofwent viral about a month ago where some marine biologistscaught a marine turtle. i think they werestudying it or tagging it
off the coast ofcosta rica and found that it had something lodgedin one of its nostrils and began to tugit out and found that it was a strawabout this long, and pulled it out ofthe turtle's head. and we've met peoplehere today and yesterday and just over the lastmonth and young people who have said i will neveruse a straw again after i saw that video.
i know that in myown experience-- thanks. i know in my ownexperience it's kind of hard to get a drinkwithout a straw unless you rememberto order it that way. you have to literally sayhi, i'd like an ice tea. no straw. please don't put anyplastic in my drink to someone-- nicely-- and about50% of the time it will work.
but i think that ifeverybody starts doing things like that we can actuallycreate some awareness and make a change. on that note, we are workingwith some different restaurant and hotel restaurant groupswho did-- mario batali is part of our coalition, andhis restaurant group, batali bastianichrestaurant group, which is now 23 differentrestaurants around the world, just made a decisionabout a year and a half
ago to change theirprotocol, which meant that they had to teachit to all of their servers and people who workedin the restaurant. and the change in protocol waswhen people order something to drink, you serve it to them. and we still havestraws, but they're only available upon request. so somebody has to kind of gothat extra mile to get a straw, because i don't know howoften i'm out with people
and we're all served adrink with a straw in it and everybody just takesthe straw out and puts it on the side. so i think that little thingslike that can go a long way and have a large effect. and actually, we're creatinga case study with them about what they've saved. and they've seen their strawusage go down substantially by just shift in protocol.
so that's quite interesting. but there are a lot ofoptions and alternatives that are available right now. and i would encourageand invite everybody who is sitting here to lookaround you and see if there are things that you canchange and do today or when you wakeup tomorrow that will help contribute tobecoming part of the solution. so yeah, thank you.
so i know we were going to havea q&a. should we just start? [inaudible] two quick questions. one is how would yousummarize the main arguments of the plastic industryagainst the ban of plastic, the plastic bans. your response tothose arguments. and the second questionis what do you think about the [inaudible] insteadof banning plastic bags,
[inaudible] to have a $0.05punishment or reward like they do in some places in canada thatthey use to reduce plastic bags by 70% in the-- yeah, we have seen successfulbag taxes, for example, in washington dcand also in ireland where they added a feeon to the plastic bag, and that did seem to dissuadepeople from-- i'm sorry, i'm going to go backwards. i'm going to answer yourlast question first.
that did seem to dissuade peoplefrom taking the plastic bags. but what i've seen is ifyou don't charge enough, people are lazy and theydon't think about it. and so i really like theincentivization idea, which is no matter what happens withthe plastic bag ban or the ban on plastic bag bansor whatever ends up happening here inarizona, i would say it would be reallywonderful to see some incentivized programswhere people are rewarded
for bringing reusable bags. and that can happenno matter what. so that's the answerto your first question. your second question. your first question imight actually bring lauren [? koubi-- ?] [? cubbi-- ?]up here with me. am i saying that right? [? cubi. ?] lauren [? cubi ?] up herewith me to help answer that.
but i would say what isthe plastic industry's main argument for banon plastic bag bans? it's money. and if they can tie stuff upin fighting and legislation back and forth, it's adrop in the bucket to them. i mean the american chemistrycouncil likes to brag on their press releases thatthey're-- i'm going to quote them, "they are integral tothe safety and the security of the united states of america,with an annual revenue of over
$455 billion dollars." so to spend a couplemillion to defeat something is nothing to them. it's nothing. and it just means that they keepget to keep selling this crap, basically. this garbage and puttingit out in the world with no responsibility,no cradle to cradle model, no producerresponsibility to them.
and they really justimmediately shove the onus onto us, onto theconsumer and onto the citizen. they're polluting ourlandscape, they're polluting our waterways. plastic bags are notsomething that are really feasible or viable to recycle. and the two funniest argumentsthat they use over and over again is this ideathat a reusable bag may contain e coli.
halloween's coming, so getready because this reusable bags and, you know, i wearsocks, i wear underwear. i wash them. everything may contain e coli. most things have e coli on them. vegetables and fruithave e coli on them. we wash them. it's very simple. plastic bags can alsohave e coli on them.
so it's kind of aridiculous argument. when they were tryingto defeat the bag ban in the state of californiathey spent $2 million on an ad campaignup in sacramento. it was before the public waseven going to vote on it. it was just a vote ofour state legislature. they posted thispsa, this ad, and it said they want to ban these. there was a plastic bag.
and they said, that's goingto cost teachers their jobs. so i don't know. basically, for myart work, i have a complete love/haterelationship with the material that i work with. i'm not sure that it's been goodfor me to touch it as much as i have for the last 25 years. and frankly, thisis another thing i don't know ifyou guys are aware
of this, but thermal paper,which our receipts are printed on, that coating on themthat allows it to function as thermal paper ismade with bisphenol a, and we absorb it through ourfingers and through our skin. and people who work as tellersor work behind counters with registers and are handingthose to people all day, i highly recommend thatthey wash their hands many, many times a day. and just with soap, not withthe antibacterial stuff.
but yeah, just with soap. but that's an important thingto note that most people are unaware of. and i only learned aboutit in last couple years. yes? i have had success inbringing my own cup to different businesses, butwhat i'm always concerned about is [inaudible] bring upthese public heath threats. so i'm wondering your approachesto dealing with a county health
department in looking atrestaurants [inaudible] that [inaudible]. i don't have an opinion on that,and i don't have experience with approaching thecounty health department. i have had peoplesay that to me when i've tried to get takeawayfood in my own steel or glass container. oftentimes the way igot around that is i say if they have a counteror a table or something,
i say well ok greatorder it for here. oops, i don't have time to stay. i put my own container. i pay and i leave. i have a question aboutcompostable material. and i know theones here are going to be really be composted. awesome. but the problem is thatin many restaurants
they think they're doingthe right thing by switching to compostable cups. but unless you're [inaudible]disposable cup and then throw it into recycling,and that messes it up. i actually have no ideawhat happens to compostable cups [inaudible]. i actually don'tknow what happens with the compostablecups, but just because something's compostabledoesn't mean it's biodegradable
and doesn't mean thatit will biodegrade. normally things thatclaim to be compostable need to go into an industrialcomposting facility and be heated to 140degrees for 10 days. if you've got that, great. if you haven't gotthat, not so great. but i would say toall of you, because i know that they were startingto serve us-- i'm sorry, i'm the one who's responsiblefor those cone-shaped paper
cups over there. i asked them to remove theplastic, compostable cups that they wereputting out earlier. so my apologies in advance. but the thing aboutcompostable plastic, or i don't even know if they'recompostable if they're plant based, if it'sa bioplastic cup. i have no idea becausei haven't looked at them and i'm not aware of whichcompany is [inaudible].
they're probablycoming from aramark or whoever supplies the campus. but in order to makethose plastic cups, whether the carbon sourcethat was used to make it is petroleum based orbio based, plant based, you have to ourplasticizers to it. and those chemicals likethis bisphenols, bpa and other bisphenols. bisphenol replacements forbpa if something's bpa-free.
or phtalates whichare used to make the plastic supple,malleable, rigid, transparent, translucent, are knownendocrine disruptors. so whether it's compostable ofor not, i don't really care. i just don't wantto eat out of it because i want to do it asmy body with extra endocrine disruptors. and basically, justfor a anyone who doesn't know about thoseendocrine disruptors,
are basically likedosing yourself with small tiny microamounts of estrogen and again, has linked to a lotof different human illnesses. just on a verypersonal note-- my mom died-- she was diagnosed withbreast cancer when she was 38 and she died when she was 42. the type of breast cancerthat she had at the time we were told wasestrogen receptive. so basically anything thatshe was eating and drinking--
we didn't know this back then--it was more than 30 years ago, was contributing to orpotentially feeding her cancer. we now know that theseendocrine disruptors have been linked to-- theydo feed breast cancer. and they've been linked tobrain cancer and prostate cancer as well. they've actually just found insome studies with bisphenol a, they've linked itto liver lesions. it was for another study thatthey were doing with mice,
but they found that it could belinked to liver cancer as well. so there's a lot of interestingpeer-reviewed scientific study and research out there. even though someother people might argue that these are just microamounts and there's nothing to be concerned about, andthere may be safe levels that are approved, i don't know. i went to college. i have a certainlevel of education.
i'm just going toget an educated decision to try andavoid this stuff and reduce my exposure toit whenever i'm able to, so i would encouragethe same of all of you. yeah? even if the ban onplastic bags does go through [inaudible]in california, how is california goingto keep natural retailers from stocking them?
well, probably in the same waythat, unfortunately, california has been able to sellfurniture and pajamas that meet the californiaflame retardants standard by adding flame retardants toeverything since the early 70s. so it just becomessomething that's kind of a patch or a designationfor anything that's coming into the state of california. luckily, jerry brownjust signed a new law that will allow peoplea choice so now you
will be able to buyfurniture that the foam inside the furnitureis not treated with flame retardants, whichare also an endocrine disruptor and have a link tohypothyroid disease. so what do you see asa more effective thing than having a ban? because oversight of bansis costly and probably full of holes. a more effective thingthat ban would be, i think,
incentivizing positivebehavior change. rewarding peoplefor good behavior, and you're trying to getthem to learn something new. how do we learn to dothe things that we do? i don't want to saywe're like lemmings, but we are kind ofmonkeys, in a way. and also, if something becomespopular or-- i mean, look. i never imagined in my lifetimethat they would prohibit smoking in public places.
that's just somethingi never imagined. but look, here we are. and isn't that wonderful? makes nice air thatpeople can breathe. i'm an ex-smoker, too. i have a really strongopinion about it now. and i think thatit's really going to be up to the young peopleand the next generations to decide what kind of worldthey want to create and live
in, and i look at myfour-year-old niece and my nine-year-oldnephew and i think oh my god, if we don'tdo something really fast about this, they're going tobe living in a garbage dump. there's a filmcalled idiocracy, i don't know if you guyshave ever seen it. it's a kind of one-liner. it's a comedy with luke wilson. and it's pretty funny,actually, and incredibly sad.
but there are so many aspectsof the story in the film, it's kind of imagining aworld in the near future where we just live in agiant garbage dump. but i don't actually seeus that far from that, because i've just seenthis rise of plastic. and also, when you lookat graphs or charts of plastic production,in the next 10 years on a global scale plasticis going to double. the production ofplastic is going
to double what it was forthe entire last century since its inceptionor invention. this is a real problem. it becomes not reallyjust about cleaning it up, and not really just aboutusing a little bit less of it, and not really about notexposing ourselves to it. it becomes how do wego about and look at it literal sourcereduction at the source. who made thispackaging decision?
is this somethingwe want to buy? let's all let thiscompany know that we don't want to buy their product. i got a really wonderfule-mail from a company that makes a lot of differencemusical instrument parts. and i've had a couplemeetings with them over the last year and a half. and they gave me abunch of good news which i think we'll be ableto share soon about changes
that they've made. but one of thechanges they made, they're in upstatenew york, is that they started learning fromsome of the news articles that we were sharing withthem about these keurig cups in the coffeemachines, the k-cups, and they just got rid of all thek-cups at their whole factory and all their offices and putin like an espresso machines and they can brewtheir own coffee
and they're reallyexcited about it. so that's a huge savingsfor them right there, but they're also lookingat their packaging for these different products. and we'll just callthem accoutrements, like devices that areused that are part of musicalinstruments, et cetera, where they might slide intoa box or something like that and be held in a littleplastic clamshell container.
they're just looking atways to replace those with things that are made frompaper or recycled paper or pulp or cardboard, and that willhave tremendous savings. and then of course the nextthing you want to look at is for a trulysustainable world would be the idea of refillingthings and using containers over and over and over again. we see a lot of companiesattempting things like that, but taking the waterout of their products
and selling a moreconcentrated version where you add your own water. i've seen quitea funny-- i think it's a ridiculousargument of why we should be usingdisposable plates and dishes and cups and things likethat, particularly now in california becausewe're having a drought. and i just find it almostunimaginable that people don't think to themselveswell, in order
to manufacture thosedisposable things, a certain amountof water was used. so not even thinking about that. but it's this idea that youcan't-- why wouldn't you want to use a plate that you canuse 5,000 times and wash it? you know, and maybewash it in a dish washer with a bunch of other platesso that you're also conserving water when you do it that way? i don't really getit, but that argument
keeps popping up againand again and again. i find it actually laughable. yes? i just learned in the lastcouple days [inaudible]. in order to get thisban on bags in arizona, the arizona [inaudible]. that's the exact title. but they actually said wewill accept your sheet plastic goods at our grocerystore in order
to not have thisban happen so i say, hold these people accountable. take all of yoursheet plastic, too. i said, you can'tshop without getting [inaudible] cardboard thingwith a plastic bag below it. take all that plastic, putit in a bigger plastic bag-- and drop it off. --back to your grocery store. because they're the oneswho said, we'll take it.
just don't put a ban on bags. so hold them accountable. this young man is an activist. you are an activist. i agree. i think that's a good idea. it's a short-term thing,but let's hold them accountable [inaudible]negotiations at the [inaudible].
did you want addanything, lauren? the only problem isthere's not really a market for them,[inaudible] like plastic in the market [inaudible]. i don't think whathe's saying has anything to do with the market. it's just a gesture. --a gesture. but supermarkets collectrecycled [inaudible]
plastic bags. well they've changed it. they take allplastic [inaudible]. that was part ofthe deal they made. are you talking about aparticular grocery chain, though? everybody issupposed to do that. all of these merchandisers. and as they say, cannotavoid if you buy anything,
it's going to come insome type of a plastic. that's cool, so howwould you do that? would you create abox at your house that says, drop out of the market? because if i could makeyour own bin-- that's cool. [inaudible] plastic. i think that's fine. even bags that your houseinsulation comes in. you take that and youstuff it in there.
it's sheet plastic. i think of terracycle. terracycle is a companythat collects it. [inaudible] sustainability[inaudible], wrappers, all sorts of plastic wrappers. a lot of the problemis that it's cheaper to use virgin plastic,and the plastic market is falling through the floor. a lot of it [inaudible].
well, also my understanding,and maybe this has changed sincei learned about it, but the polymer chain, inorder to help be strong enough to use it forthings, they can only take up to 30% recycledcontent, and the other 70% needs to be virgin. i think some applications likedecking, the plastic decking and the park benches andstuff-- i'm not an expert, but my understandingis that that
can be a lot higherpercentage of recycled. and [inaudible] i thinkit's better to use or reuse plastic in that [inaudible]. yeah, i think it'snot a bad idea. i have seen it break, though,at parks and at beaches. it does break. it becomes brittle in thesun and it will break apart, and then it ends upin the ocean again. even recycling, reusingplastic for reuse,
if it's not upcycled into something more refined andfine that people are going to keepin use forever-- just extending the lifeof it a little bit more before it ends up in the sameplace, which is a landfill or getting shipped tochina or incinerated or in the environment. but-- yeah? [inaudible] what's thealternative to throwing it
in the trash? i like your idea about--no i like your idea about dropping it off. i'd love to know how that goes. i think it's a good idea. i have two questions. the first one is, what aboutnot single-use plastic, like [inaudible]? the second question is i feellike a lot of your efforts
have to do with tryingto change behavior. how do you find a balancebetween that and [inaudible]? so you're right. it's unfair of me--i'm going to answer your second question first. it's unfair of menot to acknowledge that we do have a lotof coalition members who are working on solutionsand innovation and alternative products, developing in r&d. youmay have heard of boyan slat,
he's the young manwho when he was 17 gave a ted talkin delft in holland with this idea ofan image he put up with a passive machine thatwould clean up the ocean. he's been busy raisingabout-- he raised $2 million very quickly in orderto do a-- sorry, forgetting what it'scalled-- a study that would allow him to knowwhether they should proceed with pursuing that.
a feasibility study, sorry. and now he's inthe process of, i think, raising about $80 millionto implement first versions of it. from having spent a lotof time in the ocean, and i live near tothe pacific ocean, i actually thinkthat cleaning it up is not going to solvethe problem at all. it particularly won'tsolve the problem
when you look at howmuch we're producing. i think that even ifwe took every boat in the world and everyperson in the world and took them to the coast andout on islands and out on boats to try and pick it up andbasically sift the ocean and sift our riversand our lakes, we would not clean it up. and it would be a drop inthe bucket compared to how much we're producing daily.
so i don't see thatnecessarily as the solution. i think what he's working onis a component of the solution, and he is certainly--he's about 20 now-- has certainly helped raiseawareness around the issue, particularly with myfriend's teenage kids. but all around the world,which is fantastic. so i really think,although there are these great ideas likecompanies working on recycling plastic in the sameway from the ocean
and turning it into stitchingon your shoes or your jeans or whatever they'retrying to do-- again, i don't think that's asolution, but it is definitely helping raise awareness. and for that i value it. sorry, your firstquestion about plastics. you were holding upyour plastic bottle. i would actually discourageyou from using that. i would not encourageyou to throw it out.
i made the mistakeof throwing out a bunch of really wonderfultupperware and stuff. i didn't throw it in thegarbage, i gave it to goodwill. in retrospect, i shouldhave kept it and just used it to store things inmy office and my garage, because i think youcan just use things like that to store non-edibleand the non-beverage things in them. but i would really encourageyou to consider glass, ceramics,
or food grade stainless steelinstead as your daily water bottle or cup, only becauseeven the plastic vessels that say they are bpa are madewith other bisphenols. and the two times that i've metwith the head of the endocrine disruption department, her nameis antonia [? caliphate ?], at the center fordisease control, she has said to me that theycannot track what the bpa is being replaced with bpafree things quickly enough to identify the markers on them.
they know that some of it'sbpd, bpz, others bisphenols. and she said thatwhat they found is that they are equallybad, if not worse, to bpa. and they are estrogenic. so i would encourage you toselect-- try something else. [inaudible] a lot ofthe stainless steel bottles [inaudible]. plastic [? tops ?] [inaudible]plastic [? waters ?]. --which will have [inaudible].
yeah, they mightor they might not. i don't know. so again, when yougo to buy something if you need to buy it, i wouldopen it up and look inside of it and try tochoose things that are still also steelor glass or wood or ceramic on the interior. i know that most of the bottlesdo have a silicon o-ring. i am not an expert on silicon.
we were talkingabout earlier today. i don't know what theramification of silicon are. i know that it's beingoffered for sale to people to bake things in andall kinds of things having to do with food. again, i'm not a scientist. so i would say ifyou can use metal. i mean, i have some castiron pans that i use. frying pans.
and i have onethat was my mom's. and actually myboyfriend also has one that was his mom's, andwe kind of treasure them. and we take really good carethem and we put oil on them. i think that there are beautifulthings that can be used for many, many generations. so i prefer-- i like old stuffthat's well-made and good. you may have alreadyaddressed this, [inaudible] what [inaudible]plastic lines the inside
of the to-go cups that youmight get at starbucks-- so plastic to-go cups. that's fun. i think i had seen somebodywho came in with one. i was going to havehim hold it up. there you go. there it is. what you have to know about--sorry, paper to-go cups. what need to knowis that they are
made with a certainpercentage of plastic. and it turns out that they haveto be because, otherwise they would leak. i also just learnedin the last year, and i was prettyshocked by this, but the tops-- can you holdthat up again for a second? the to-go tops on these arenot just made out of plastic, they're made out ofcompressed polystyrene. and polystyrene, or as it'salso known as styrofoam
as one of the brand names forit, it gives off a neurotoxin. so i would also encourage younot to take those tops on cups. would you talk a little bitmore about the brief comment that you made about thefibers from synthetic fabric [inaudible]? sure. yeah, sure. so it turns out, alot of our clothing is made from synthetic materialslike polyester or modal,
or i'm sure i'm totallyguilty of it, too. i'm just going to walkout in front of you guys and pull on my jeans right now. so my jeans arestretchy which means that they've got a certainamount of elastic or something, some kind of plastic in them. it turns out that everytime we wash our clothing, and our clothing has syntheticsin it, it releases microfibers. i know this is kind of badnews for that awesome company,
patagonia, that makes allthe polar fleece tops out of recycled plastic bottles. and i know that it'ssomething that it's something that they're lookingat right now, because pretty muchevery time you wash something you're releasing it. there are a couple differentgroups and companies that are working on a filterfor washing machines that could be something thateverybody could attach
to their washing machine. but in all fairness, i've beento mali, i've been to india, i've been to china, i've been toa number of different countries where probably amajority of people are not using a washing machine. many people are usinga washing machine but many people are not. and in many partsof the world people still are just scrubbingthings in the basement
and washing them by hand. so again, microfibersare going to be released every time we wash our clothes. so i'm not telling younot to wash your clothes, but it's justsomething to consider. and then another thing thatthat got me thinking about is it good for us to wearsynthetics on our body. again, just becauseour skin, it's our largest organ of our body.
and it's porous and we absorbthings through our skin. so it's alsosomething to consider. and i would saythere maybe the thing to encourage peopleto do, and this is something i need to applyto myself as well, would be to make an effort to buyclothing that this is made from natural materialslike wool or cotton or hemp or non-synthetic materials. but at this point i would sayi feel like i have too much.
and if anything i should justbe giving things away instead of buying new things. one more question. you gave the exampleof straws earlier. do you think thatalienating people is as effective aspositive reinforcement? if you were going to alienatepeople with some method like making themask for a straw, do you think that's as effectiveas positive reinforcement?
do you feel alienated if youask for some salt and pepper and you're at a restaurant? no. but if there was some big dealmade about it by the waiter or something like that, do youthink that there's any way-- they're not making a big deal,they just don't serve them. and if you really wantone you ask them for one. i don't think that'salienating at all. i'm saying as amethod, do you think
that that's something that couldbe applied to be successful? the method i'm just describingof changing the protocol and not automaticallyoffering someone a straw or shoving a strawin their drink? do i think thatthat's alienating? do you think thatalienating as a technique would be successful. well, one, i don'tfind my example to be somethingthat's alienating.
and two, do i thinkalienating is a good approach? nothing that i've beentalking about is alienating. if anything, it's askingpeople for something you like and it's rewardingthem for doing something that you'd like them to doinstead rather than something else. so i think that thoseare all really kind and polite gentle ways tobring about behavior change. so then it's opting in or out.
so when you go to ahotel, one of two ways. if you want towels tobe replaced every day, you have to put a sign out. that says you have to take anaction to get towels every day. some say if you don'twant towels every day put the sign out. so one way makesyou do something. the other way, they're goingto automatically not give you a towel if you want one.
so it's just optingin versus opting out. i don't think it'san alienation, but it's just how you makethe human behind it react, what you make them do. you make them make anaction to get an action. just like we should ban--we shouldn't print receipts. receipts should be optional. we have email. how many billionsof pounds of paper
do we waste annuallyprinting receipts versus not printing one. if the customer wantsone, they print him one, or have [inaudible]automatically go to your email. if they're using a debit card ora credit card, more than likely it has their emailaddress on it anyhow. make [inaudible]. that's right. that's all it is.
it's opting in and out.[inaudible] alienates. ok, the very lastquestion goes to nona. actually, i just wantto add something. from a businessaspect of it, the fact that you always say wouldyou like a straw, [inaudible] usually don't come backand say [inaudible] usually when we take it, which isreally hard to tell that to your servers, because theyare in the habit of doing that. but one thing, it's interesting.
the plasticware is some ofthe most expensive items that we spend money on. so from a businessstandpoint, we save so much money as abusiness [inaudible] use it. so not just thinking about thefinancial aspect of it, ok, [inaudible] littlethings you add up. to go boxes are soexpensive [inaudible] give it away [inaudible]financial aspect of it [inaudible] becreative and find a way
to [inaudible] something tosave you money [inaudible] business owner. amen. thank you, nona. let's thank dianna for allher time and [inaudible]. institute of sustainability. for educational andnoncommercial use only.
