Plastisphere: A podcast on plastic pollution in the environment
Anja Krieger
15 episodes
1 week ago
It's the elephant in the room: The growth of plastic production and how that contributes to pollution. In this episode, we're taking a look at why it's important to not only tackle the waste plastic causes, but also the source of the issue itself. Anja discusses this with Melanie Bergmann, a marine biologist at Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and a plastic pollution researcher for more than a decade, and Kristian Syberg, an environmental scientist and planner from Roskilde University. Both are members of the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.
Sources mentioned:
- Cowger et al. (2024), Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj8275
- Borrelle et al. (2020), Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution, Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3656
- Lau et al. (2020), Evaluating scenarios toward zero plastic pollution, Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba9475
- Geyer et al. (2017), Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782
- A.E. Higginson, Greater London Council (1971): The view of a local authority, in: Plastics waste in the environment. Plastics & Polymers supplement No. 4, September 1971, The Plastics Institute, London (not online, can be ordered via libraries). For a screenshot of the first pages, check out this post on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7401522510678163456?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7401522510678163456%2C7401528231109234690%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287401528231109234690%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7401522510678163456%29
All content for Plastisphere: A podcast on plastic pollution in the environment is the property of Anja Krieger and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
It's the elephant in the room: The growth of plastic production and how that contributes to pollution. In this episode, we're taking a look at why it's important to not only tackle the waste plastic causes, but also the source of the issue itself. Anja discusses this with Melanie Bergmann, a marine biologist at Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and a plastic pollution researcher for more than a decade, and Kristian Syberg, an environmental scientist and planner from Roskilde University. Both are members of the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.
Sources mentioned:
- Cowger et al. (2024), Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj8275
- Borrelle et al. (2020), Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution, Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3656
- Lau et al. (2020), Evaluating scenarios toward zero plastic pollution, Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba9475
- Geyer et al. (2017), Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782
- A.E. Higginson, Greater London Council (1971): The view of a local authority, in: Plastics waste in the environment. Plastics & Polymers supplement No. 4, September 1971, The Plastics Institute, London (not online, can be ordered via libraries). For a screenshot of the first pages, check out this post on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7401522510678163456?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7401522510678163456%2C7401528231109234690%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287401528231109234690%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7401522510678163456%29
Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Judie)
Plastisphere: A podcast on plastic pollution in the environment
34 minutes 6 seconds
3 months ago
Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Judie)
In this episode, we’re going to head out to the beach for the 40th International Coastal Cleanup Day. It’s a huge event which has been taking place each third Saturday of September for four decades now. Each year that day, hundreds of thousands of people swarm to the shorelines and collect and remove the trash they find. But beyond just cleaning up, International Coastal Cleanup Day is an important part of the science and politics of plastics. But how did it all begin? In the next two episodes, you’ll get to hear the little-known stories of the women who started the beach cleanups in the 1980s. These early activists did not only mobilise citizens to put a global spotlight on plastic pollution. They were also the first to count and classify the trash, which produced invaluable data to better understand the growing environmental issue plastics posed. And right from the beginning, beach cleanups drew the interest of the plastics and packaging industries. We’ll explore this history in more detail with Elsa Devienne. Elsa is an assistant professor in US history at Northumbria University in the UK, and she’s the one who dug up this story.
Find part two of the story here: https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/coastal-cleanup-linda
Link to the 1984 video "Get the Drift and Bag it": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEesPuZxCes
Elsa's paper: Making Plastics Count: Citizen Science Beach Cleanups and the Ocean Plastic Pollution Crisis (1980s–2020s) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/737351?journalCode=eh
Contact her for a free copy: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/d/elsa-devienne/
This episode was supported by a British Academy Leverhulme Small Grant and co-produced by Elsa Devienne and Anja Krieger. All recordings with Judie by Elsa. Music is by Dorian Roy, and cover art by Maren von Stockhausen.
Plastisphere: A podcast on plastic pollution in the environment
It's the elephant in the room: The growth of plastic production and how that contributes to pollution. In this episode, we're taking a look at why it's important to not only tackle the waste plastic causes, but also the source of the issue itself. Anja discusses this with Melanie Bergmann, a marine biologist at Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and a plastic pollution researcher for more than a decade, and Kristian Syberg, an environmental scientist and planner from Roskilde University. Both are members of the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.
Sources mentioned:
- Cowger et al. (2024), Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj8275
- Borrelle et al. (2020), Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution, Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba3656
- Lau et al. (2020), Evaluating scenarios toward zero plastic pollution, Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba9475
- Geyer et al. (2017), Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700782
- A.E. Higginson, Greater London Council (1971): The view of a local authority, in: Plastics waste in the environment. Plastics & Polymers supplement No. 4, September 1971, The Plastics Institute, London (not online, can be ordered via libraries). For a screenshot of the first pages, check out this post on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7401522510678163456?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7401522510678163456%2C7401528231109234690%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287401528231109234690%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7401522510678163456%29
