Mar 24: Sustainability Salon on Reducing Plastics (on Zoom)

 

With catastrophic events like the train derailment and chemical explosion in nearby East Palestine, Ohio last year, the plastics industry is receiving much-needed scrutiny.  PFAS (a class of toxic "forever chemicals") are finding their way into our food by many paths.  Planet vs. Plastics is even the theme of this year's Earth Day!  Leading up to our annual Food salons, we'll look at ways that we -- individuals, and society at large -- can reduce the use of plastics related to food: how it's grown, packaged, transported, prepared, served, and stored.  Petro-based plastics in particular (the word "plastic" just means "formable") are problematic -- we can address both the production side (drilling and fracking and pipelines and petrochemical plants and transportation of chemicals and nurdles, all of which damage health and the environment) and the end-of-life problems (plastic pollution, from ecosystems to our own bodies) by changing how we do things (e.g., eliminating single-use plastics) and what we do them with (filling the same needs with other, more benign, materials).  So for the 146th Sustainability Salon, we'll extend our annual Food series with an extra session focusing on plastics, in collaboration with Pittsburghers Against Single-use Plastic (PASUP).

Although Sunday looks to be a nice day for working outside, it’ll be a bit cool for sitting around in the shade for hours, so we’ll still be on Zoom.  

PASUP's Maren Cooke will open with a brief explanation of why each item in the event photo was chosen -- 'cause we know that some folks are wondering.

PASUP's 'Becca Stallings is also the author of The Earthling's Handbook, an insightful blog which explores many different aspects of life through a lens of sustainability.  Earthling's entries range from book reviews to healthy recipes to reviews of plastic-free products.   'Becca will further explore the realm of food-container reuse.

PASUP's Dianne Peterson will share what she's been doing to enable individuals and families to eschew plastics, and especially single-use plastics, in their daily lives.  From wooden toys and games to food storage containers made of silicone and stainless steel, her home-based business Our Children Our Earth enables Pittsburghers and others to live life a little more sustainably.  And Dianne's Dishware has provided bamboo-based tableware to dozens (or hundreds?) of events in and around the 'Burgh (that otherwise would've used disposables).  

Ed Wrenn co-founded our regional chapter of Wild Ones, an organization that promotes native plants and more-sustainable land care, but he also thinks a great deal about plastics -- including those used in landscaping and food gardening -- and how they can be reduced.  

Check back here for updates!

The next two Sustainability Salons will also be part of our regular spring series on Food.  

There are also a whole lot of other important events happening in our region;  check out the list below!

With weather still chilly, we'll still be on Zoom this month.  We'll see how the forecast develops for next month!  Zoom salons (and the Zoom side for hybrid events), start around 4 p.m., when presentations begin, and usually wind down sometime around 7 or 8 (informal discussion may continue after that) -- join us for whatever time works for you!.   If you're not already on my Eventbrite list, please email me (maren dot cooke at gmail dot com) with "salon" in the Subject line to be added -- and let me know how you heard about salons!  If you RSVP via Eventbrite, you'll receive the Zoom registration link right away. Along about Saturday night/Sunday morning, I'll send it out again, with other information, to all who have RSVP'd.  If you're new to Zoom, you may find my Zoom Reference Guide helpful. 

Other events and whatnot:

•  Mar 18:  Seminar on the History of Deep Reform in the US and Its Lessons for Today's Social Movements -- 4:30-7 in 3702 Posvar Hall (230 S Bouquet St., at Pitt).

•  Mar 21:  The Black Appalachian Coalition and the Ohio River Valley Institute are partnering with  Patricia DeMarco, PhD for a Petrochemical Lunch & Learn series, delving deep into the connection between environmental pollution and our health.  This month's session focuses on air pollution. Register here.

•  Mar 23:  Rally and conference in East Palestine:  Among the consequences of plastic production are events like last year's train derailment and chemical explosion, which released huge amounts of toxic substances -- and in the process burned several cars' worth of vinyl chloride, leaving homes and communities contaminated, and damaging residents' health both there and downwind (largely Beaver County, just north of Pittsburgh).  Join community members, labor allies, and Food & Water Watch for a rally and conference.  More info and registration here.  And there will be a bus from Pittsburgh!

•  Apr 3-7:  Concerned about soil contamination?  (Here's some information on lead in soils.)  The Allegheny County Conservation District is holding a free Soil Lead Screening, with five different dropoff sites around town.  You need to register here, and detailed instructions will be sent to you! 

•  Apr 4:  Pittsburgh Green New Deal holds another community strategy session to help make sure that the new Climate Action Plan being developed by Allegheny County Council is inclusive and addresses environmental justice issues adequately.  Here's the Zoom registration link.

•  Apr 11 or 15:  Again apropos of our plastics theme... the film Blue Vinyl, a terrific and very personal documentary about the toxic impacts at all stages of the PVC lifespan, will be screened in Ambridge and Sewickley (with a panel discussion).  

•  April 18:  The Black Appalachian Coalition and the Ohio River Valley Institute are partnering with  Patricia DeMarco, PhD for a Petrochemical Lunch & Learn series, delving deep into the connection between environmental pollution and our health.  April's theme is Water. Register here.

•  Apr 25:  If you operate a local business, and would like to explore this month's salon topic further, check out this all-day event by Humane Action Pittsburgh:  Serving Up Sustainability.  More information and registration here.

•  Apr 27 & 28:  Penn Garvin, who framed our recent four-part series on Movement-Building, will be in Pittsburgh for a two-day workshop on Strategic Organizing and Nonviolent Direct Action.  More details here!

•  May 24-27:  Heartwood Forest Council is coming to southeastern Ohio.  You can hear organizer Matt Peters talk about the organization and the gathering on this interview/podcast-style video (he starts talking about Heartwood a little after 12 minutes in -- more local stuff before that).

•  ReImagine Food Systems, which we've talked about at past salons, is raising funds for this year's operations (food gardens and hands-on education offered at no cost to residents in environmental justice communities, by volunteers).  If you have something to spare, you can contribute via GoFundMe.  And we're always looking for more volunteers, too!  Email reimaginefoodsystems@gmail.com.

•  Concerned Health Professionals of NY recently released the 9th Edition of the Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas & Oil Infrastructure.  Check it out!  

•  PA is considering legislation to (a) greatly increase the renewables portion of our electricity generation, and (b) enable community solar!!  The Pennsylvania Solar Center has made it easy to speak out to support this action! 

•  We know that only a tiny fraction of plastic has ever been recycled.  And yet, NPR has been airing sponsorship messages for the American Recycling Council, which is continuing to perpetrate the "recycling" hoax.  Does that make your blood boil?  The national group Beyond Plastics has a petition/sign-on letter to get them to stop -- please sign, for yourself or for an organization you represent!

•  It's been more than a year now!  You can support striking Post-Gazette workers here (and consider signing up for the alternative online publication, the Pittsburgh Union Progress -- and maybe even cancel your P-G subscription until they start treating workers fairly!).  This strike has garnered national attention;  one recent picket even made it into Teen Vogue.

•  And speaking of solidarity, the Cop City controversy is still raging in Atlanta.  More information and a support fund are here.  There's also talk of a similar facility in the works for Pittsburgh.

•  Another forest that needs protecting is Sherwood Forest, in Mason Co., WA -- at risk of clear-cutting by a company headquartered here in Pittsburgh.  You can learn more (and donate to the legal fund if you can) here. 

•  PRC continues to hold online workshops about composting, rainwater harvesting, and waste reduction.  And they have several Hard-to-Recycle events each year;  2024's are listed here.  

•  The Rachel Carson EcoVillage is still looking for a few more members, so they can start construction!  Curious?  Check out this introductory video -- or even better, sign up for an introduction session or sign up as an “inquirer” to have more information sent to you.

•  Did you see the film The Story of Plastic, or the PBS doc Plastic Wars?  (and/or join us for Plastic Paradise at a winter film salon six years ago?)  ...What if you could bring up imagery of the toxic impacts of plastic production, and commentary by the people and communities living with them, over the world?  You can do all that with the interactive Toxic Tours tool.  Check it out!  

•  Mask update:  Breathe99 masks (featured in a 2020 salon on Pandemics and Air (video), and one of TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2020) are now being distributed by Our Children Our Earth, a local purveyor of alternatives to disposables (as well as classy wooden toys).  Contact Dianne via OCOE's Facebook page, or call (412) 772-1638 to coordinate a curbside pickup (or you can still order online).

For the uninitiated, a Sustainability Salon is an educational forum;  it's a mini-conference;  it's a venue for discussion and debate about important environmental issues (and often health, and justice, and politics);  it's a house party (if there weren't a pandemic) with an environmental theme.  Each month we have featured speakers on various aspects of a particular topic, interspersed with stimulating conversation, lively debate, and (when in person) delectable potluck food and drink and music-making through the evening.   Originally a potluck mini-conference, the event has been mostly on Zoom since March 2020, except for some outdoor summer (and now hybrid!) salons.  

Past topics have included water campaigns, climate campaigns, consumerism, air quality campaigns,  movement-building and sustained campaigns, abandoned oil and gas wells, hope (finding it, creating it, using it), addressing environmental causes of cancer, a development proposal for Frick Park, single-use plastic legislation, home energy efficiency (and legislation to help fund improvements), the UN's COP process for climate negotiations, alternatives to single-use packaging, our region's air (part I and part II), activist art and America's Energy Gamble, advocacy opportunities, social justice games, fixing Pennsylvania state government, climate action, forest restoration, the history of American consumerism, regional air quality, preserving Pittsburgh's forests, climate modeling, approaches to pipelines, pipeline hazards, the legacy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the judiciary and fair elections, consumption, pandemics and air,  election law and activism, air quality and environmental justice, social investment,  local economies, the economics of energy, mutual aid networks, ocean health, the rise of the radical right, the back end of consumption, approaches to activism on fracking & climate, air quality, technology, and citizen science, single-use plastics, election activism, election law, whether to preserve existing nuclear power plants, advanced nuclear technologies, passenger and freight trains, consumption, plastics, and pollution, air quality, solar power, youth activism, greening business, greenwashing, the petrochemical buildout in our region, climate/nature/people, fracking, health, & action, globalization, ecological ethics, community inclusion, air quality monitoring, informal gatherings that turn out to have lots of speakers, getting STEM into Congress, keeping Pittsburgh's water public, Shell's planned petrochemical plant, visualizing air quality, the City of Pittsburgh's sustainability initiatives, fossil energy infrastructure, getting money out of politics, community solar power and the Solarize Allegheny program, the Paris climate negotiations (before, during, and after), air quality (again, with news on the autism connection), reuse (of things and substances), neighborhood-scale food systems, other forms of green community revitalization, solar power, climate change, environmental art, environmental education (Part I & Part II), community mapping projects, environmental journalism, grassroots action, Marcellus shale development and community rights, green building, air quality, health care, more solar power, trees and park stewardship, alternative energy and climate policy, regional watershed issues, fantastic film screenings and discussions (often led by filmmakers) over the winter with films on Food Systems, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Plastic Paradise, Rachel Carson and the Power Of One Voice, Triple Divide on fracking, You've Been Trumped and A Dangerous Game, A Fierce Green Fire, Sustainability Pioneers, films on consumption, Living Downstream, Bidder 70, YERT, Gas Rush Stories, and food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, and more food (a recurrent theme;  with California running out of water, we'd better gear up to produce a lot more of our own!).