Season Three, Episode One: Judith Enck and The Problem with Plastic

In this episode, we’re joined by environmental policy expert Judith Enck, co-author of The Problem with Plastic and president of Beyond Plastics, for a frank conversation about why plastic recycling has largely failed—and why that failure wasn’t an accident.

Judith unpacks how the plastics industry has known for decades that recycling doesn’t work, while spending millions convincing the public otherwise. We also explore the human and environmental costs of plastic production, from “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana—where petrochemical plants line the Mississippi River—to the growing body of research showing microplastics in our blood, organs, placenta, and breast milk.

But this isn’t just a story of harm. It’s a call to action. The conversation turns toward real, systemic solutions—like policy efforts to reduce single-use plastics, eliminate toxic chemicals in packaging, and invest in reuse and refill systems.

The takeaway? Individual choices matter—but lasting change comes when many people work together, imperfectly but persistently, to transform the systems and laws shaping our world.

About Judith

Judith Enck is a faculty member at Bennington College, where she teaches courses on plastic pollution, and the founder of Beyond Plastics, an organization that works with community leaders and policymakers to reduce plastic pollution. She also leads the college’s Environmental Action Fellowship.

Appointed by President Obama, Judith served as the longest-tenured Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Region 2, overseeing environmental protection in New York, New Jersey, eight Tribal Nations, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. She has also held senior roles in New York State government, including Deputy Secretary for the Environment, Policy Advisor to the Attorney General, and Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of New York.

A frequent public commentator, Judith appears on WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s The Roundtable. She is the co-author of the new book The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late.

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Transcript

Heather Gibbons (00:10):

Welcome to the latest episode of Hawthorne Valley's Roots to Renewal podcast. After a bit of a hiatus, we're so happy to be back with you. In this episode, our host, Martin Ping, is joined by Judith Enck, environmental policy expert, longtime advocate, and co-author of The Problem with Plastic. Judith has spent decades at the intersection of environmental protection, public policy, and justice from her early work helping pass New York State's bottle bill to her current role as President of Beyond Plastics and a professor at Bennington College. In this conversation, we talk about why plastic recycling has largely failed, how plastic production is deeply tied to environmental and social injustice, and what the growing science around microplastics means for both our health and for future generations. But we also spend time where Judith herself insists we must on solutions on collective action and on the very real reasons for hope. This is a conversation about truth telling responsibility and what it looks like to push for systemic change while still doing the best we can in our own lives. We're grateful to share it with you.

Martin Ping (01:21):

Judith, thank you very much for joining us today, agreeing to take time out of what I know is a very busy schedule with your teaching and also promoting your book, the Problem with Plastic, which we will be speaking about now. And so a big, hearty, heartfelt thank you. Having read the book, I have to say that there are parts of it that are challenging because it makes you feel, you get the sense of what an overwhelming challenge we have, and so I could almost be crushed by the weight of that except that I know that you're involved in trying to find solutions. And since I've known you for a while, that gives me great hope. Our friendship started somewhere around 1981, and you were at the environmental planning lobby working on the New York State bottle bill, which I believe passed in 82 and was signed into law in 1983. My memory serves me well, and you were executive director of the environmental planning lobby at that time. So we go back quite a ways and as I understand it, that work on the bottle bill remains the kind of most reliable method for actually recycling. And other than that, what I found disheartening in reading the book is that almost the rest of recycling is a bit of a myth, and I wonder if you might speak to that.

Judith Enck (02:44):

Sure, absolutely. And Martin, it's a real privilege to be with you. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Thanks for reminding how old I am. Yes, Governor Hugh Carey signed the bottle bill into law 1982, and I started working on it actually when I was a college student and I was a volunteer with New York Public Interest Research Group, and then I graduated from college, still wanted to pass this bill, and working on the New York bottle bill really gave me the bug. It gave me the opportunity to see that just one person can make a difference. I was this just out of college riding my bike all over the city of Albany. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I was determined to pass this bill and working in coalition with others, we got it adopted and the bottle bill reduces litter.

(03:39):

It also gives you a clean material that actually can get recycled. And I want to start by saying we should keep recycling our cardboard paper, metal and glass. Keep composting your yard waste and your food waste. But plastics recycling has been an abysmal failure. And I want to explain why. When you recycle an aluminum can, for instance, it's an empty, aluminum can become a new aluminum can. If you recycle a newspaper, it can become a piece of cardboard. It doesn't work that way with plastics recycling because there are 16,000 different chemicals used to make plastics. Many different types of plastics known as polymers and many different colors. So if you think of your own home, you might have a bright orange hard plastic detergent bottle on top of your washing machine to do laundry, and then you might have a thin plastic bread bag in your kitchen.

(04:43):

Those two plastics cannot be recycled together. Different color, different type of plastic and different chemical combination. So the people who've known for decades that plastics recycling doesn't work are the plastics industry. And who is the plastics industry? It's chemical companies and fossil fuel companies. The problem is so serious that the Attorney General of California, Rob Bonta sued Exxon Mobil in September of 2024 for deceiving the public about plastics recycling. And Attorney General Bonta, I predict is going to win that case because ExxonMobil and the other plastic producers spent millions of dollars telling us all as consumers, don't worry about all the plastic you're using, just toss it in your recycling bin. And they knew full well that most plastics never get recycled. So we explain this in the book and we also say that the real only long-term solution is to focus on reducing the amount of plastic that is produced, shifting away from plastic, ideally reusable refillable containers. When I was growing up, most soda was sold in refillable glass bottles. I occasionally talked to winery owners. They're spending 80 to 90 cents for one glass wine bottle. They would love to shift to refillable glass bottles. It will save them money, but we need to build a refill reuse infrastructure so we can build commercial bottle washing operations, for instance, where you can sanitize these bottles. So it's a daunting problem, but moving past plastic actually has some very practical alternatives.

Martin Ping (06:44):

That's very heartening. I was also very struck in the book how you illustrate the interconnectedness between ecological and social justice issues. It really comes to the fore, and I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit.

Judith Enck (06:59):

Sure. And a lot of that is due to my co-author Adam Mahoney, who is a very talented young journalist based in New Orleans, who's done some great reporting on environmental justice issues around the world. And one of the reasons I work on plastics is because of environmental justice. Most plastics are produced in Louisiana, Texas, and Appalachia. There's a section in Louisiana along the Mississippi River that's actually called Cancer Alley, where there's a concentration of petrochemical facilities, many of them use to make plastics. People are getting sick from all of the pollution. And in fact, a recent study by Johns Hopkins revealed that the cancer rate in cancer alley is seven times the national average, and that's to produce so much plastic. So we have to turn off the tap. Your health should not be dictated by your zip code. And the people that live in Cancer Alley are heroic, doing great work.

(08:04):

They're standing up to plastics and fossil fuels companies. In the book, we profile a handful of women who are really getting important work done. One is Sharon Lavigne, who lives in St. James Parish in Louisiana, and she and her family started a group called Rise St. James. They've already defeated multi multi-billion dollar plastic production facilities, and now they really have their work cut out for them because there's a company called Formosa Plastics, which is an international company, and they are trying to build a new plastic production facility there, but they don't know who they're up against. I really would wager a bet that Sharon Levine and the amazing local supporters with Rise St. James are going to prevail in the end. But these poor folks have to spend full time, like 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week, standing up to these multinational companies because they want to clean and healthy environment.

(09:11):

There's a wonderful group I like working with called The Story of Stuff, and they have published a great video about Sharon Lavigne, very short animated people should go to the story of stuff.org and also look at their Emmy award-winning movie called The Story of Plastic, where they bring you through the whole lifecycle of plastic, and they put a spotlight not only on Cancer Alley in Louisiana, but also so much plastic waste is exported to other countries, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Turkey, and those countries are not equipped to handle all of this plastic waste. And the film really explains why that is a problem.

Martin Ping (09:57):

Coincidentally, I mentioned Annie Leonard and story of stuff in my class this morning with grade 12 economics. So we were talking about GDP and Annie once said to me at lunch, GDP measures the health of our landfills. It stayed with me.

Judith Enck (10:12):

It's true. She blazed the trail on not just plastics, but over consumption. And that's really what this is all about.

Martin Ping (10:23):

Plastic is as we all know, because this does make it into news, it's making it into our oceans and into our waterways and breaking down and creating this problem with micro and nanoplastics. And maybe a tiny bit on that before we jump into something more hopeful.

Judith Enck (10:40):

Sure. So yes, we are turning our ocean into a watery landfill today about full garbage trucks filled with plastic is dumped into the ocean every minute when you tally it all up and once it gets into the ocean, it doesn't go away. Most of the plastic comes from litter from the land. So you're walking down the street, a plastic water bottle gets away from you, or you litter a chip bag that's made from plastic that goes into the sewer system or a storm drain which empties into streams and rivers. And then we know all rivers lead to the ocean. So let's think about this plastic water bottle. It's bopping around the top of the ocean. It's exposed to sunlight, so it gets brittle. And then the wave action acts almost like a paper cutter and one plastic water bottle becomes hundreds of little pieces of plastic.

(11:38):

Most plastic in the ocean falls to the sea floor. We've seen these pictures of these giant islands. They're called gyrus, but that's unusual. Most of the plastic falls to the sea floor. It's eaten by fish, it's eaten by seabirds, it's eaten by turtles. And then if we eat the fish, we're eating the microplastics. So let's jump from fish to people. We are all breathing in microplastics and swap microplastics. And for the first time, really in the last I'd say four years, we've had really solid science looking at the presence of microplastics in the human body. So these are peer-reviewed scientific studies identifying what parts of the body have microplastics. If your listeners go to our website, which is beyond plastics, we have now added a feature to the very top of our website. You'll see a big red cross, and we have a chronological listing of many of the peer reviewed scientific papers on plastics and health.

(12:47):

So on the health issue, there's the immediate concern about people living near plastic production facilities like Louisiana, which we just discussed. But for others who don't live in the Gulf South or Appalachia, we all should be concerned about plastics and health because researchers have identified the presence of microplastics in our blood, our kidney, our lungs. For a couple years, the plastics lobbyist would say, yeah, there are microplastics in your body, but you excrete a lot of it. There's no indication that it's cause for harm. But we now have a paper from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that identified microplastics in heart arteries. It attaches to plaque, and if you've got microplastics on your plaque in your heart arteries, you have an increased risk of stroke, heart attack or premature death. Another recent study looked at the presence of microplastics in the human brain.

(13:49):

The bad, bad news is that the microplastics have crossed the blood brain barrier, and if you have microplastics in your brain, you have an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease, neurological disease. And of course, we want these studies replicated, but there is enough to act. The other studies that really concern me are the presence of microplastics in human testicles and the placenta, both the fetal side and the maternal side and microplastics have been found in human breast milk. So think about the placenta. The baby is just hanging out for 7, 8, 9 months and is already being exposed to microplastics. Our babies are being born pre polluted. This is unconscionable, and it's not just the presence of little bits of plastic in our bodies that may harm us, but every plastic has toxic chemicals in it. So the toxic chemicals hitchhike on the microplastics. So our bodies are getting a double risk, and no one in federal or state government is protecting us from these risks.

(15:03):

And that's why at Beyond Plastics and in the book The Problem With Plastic, we really emphasize that the best route here is to reduce the production and use of plastics. The book, which was published by the New Press, which we love, a nonprofit progressive publishing house, the book by the way, the cover has no plastic on it, which if you feel the book, it feels a little different. And the New Press is committed that all their future books will not have plastic covers. It was not that much more expensive doing a non-plastic cover. But if you read the book toward the Back, we have little tips on what you can do in your own life and a little household audit that you can do. And the message I want to leave with listeners is do the best you can, but realize that choice has been taken away from us.

(15:59):

When you go to most stores, you don't have a choice but to buy things in plastic. None of us voted for more plastic. Nothing tastes better in plastic, so we do the best we can, but the real solution is to change the laws so we have choice. I'm reminded of this great sentiment from Anne Marie Bonneau, who is the zero waste chef. She said, we don't need a small number of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need large numbers of people doing zero waste imperfectly, and that's the case with plastic. Do not beat yourself up on this. Do as much as you can to reduce plastic, particularly in your kitchen, especially if you're pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant, because a lot of the chemicals in plastic are reproductive toxins. But the way we are going to affect systemic change is by passing new laws to require a reduction in plastics.

(17:05):

For instance, for listeners in New York, there's a really important state bill called the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, which requires a 30% reduction in single use plastic over 12 years. Incredibly modest. It bans the 17 most toxic chemicals used in packaging, including the entire family of PFAS, chemicals and mercury and lead and formaldehyde. I dunno about you, but I do not want formaldehyde in my food packaging, especially it's touching the food. It doesn't smell good. I don't want to consume it. The bill also puts a modest fee on packaging with new revenue going mostly local governments to invest in reuse refill programs and also improve recycling. And finally, the bill prohibits the very questionable technology called chemical recycling from counting as real recycling. So we are working almost round the clock to pass this bill in Albany because we need one big state to do it right, and we're putting our organic eggs into the New York basket.

Martin Ping (18:18):

I would encourage everyone listening to get a copy of the book and read it to visit your website, which is just chockfull of good and very useful information. And to consider signing up for your course. I'm signed up for this coming February. I'll be auditing. So I'm super looking forward to that.

Judith Enck (18:38):

The thing about the class is I teach it every semester. It's on Zoom and it's through Bennington College where I'm a professor. So the next cycle starts in mid-February, but I'll teach it every semester in case you miss this cycle. It's always on Wednesday nights at 7:00 PM Eastern, and we have this wonderful collection of Bennington undergraduate students. Sometimes we have high school students. We'd love to get some more high school students. Hint, hint. And then we have community people like you who audit the class. So it's a really nice synergy. And one reason I wrote the book is because I didn't have a book for the class, I just torture people with endless PDFs of articles, and now they can read different chapters of the book. So everyone should buy the book. The Problem With Plastic, you can use it for the class, but also when you're done with the book, unless you have it highlighted every other page, which you should, but you can donate the book to your local public library because we really want libraries to have this book as well. We were contacted recently by a man in Vermont who was interested in purchasing the book for every single public library in Vermont. So we're going to do some follow up with him. That's a force multiplier. Don't just read the book yourself, but get it into the hands of people looking for good books at public libraries. I do think the book is good. You laugh, you cry, you're horrified by some of the statistics, and then you have hope at the end.

Martin Ping (20:14):

Hope is really important, the capacity that we need to cultivate in our young people. And so I'm encouraging my students to read the book and to consider signing up for the course.

Judith Enck (20:25):

Yeah, they can get one college credit if they want to sign up for the course, they can front load their college education. You don't need the credit, but they do. And if I could just say one more thing before we say bye-bye, I'm constantly fundraising for Beyond Plastics. We're a small, feisty group. We've grown from one to 17 people just in the last five years. I'm proud of that, and I ask people for money all the time. I'm like your teenage kids. I'm just constantly asking for money. But on this podcast, I'm not going to ask for people to donate to be on plastics. But I do want to ask folks to consider, and no matter when this runs, to consider making a donation to the good people in Minnesota who are standing up against Ice and Border Patrol. And there's a fabulous website site called Stand with minnesota.com. Minnesota has two ends, and this is all about justice, whether it's environmental justice, immigrant justice, racial justice, we want everyone supporting Stand with Minnesota so the brave people in Minnesota get the support that they need.

Martin Ping (21:35):

Judith, this is the second time in recent history where you've made a pitch for Beyond Plastic, but you actually pitched for another organization for people to support. That is a picture of Judith and your big Heartedness for Humanity. And I just thank you for that. It's such a pleasure to know you. You remained such an inspiration, such a mentor, and such a dear friend. So thank you so much for being with us today, and I'm looking forward to seeing you down the road at another Beyond Plastics event.

Judith Enck (22:08):

It's all on our website and we're all in this together. Thanks for having me.

Heather Gibbons (22:18):

That was Judith thank co-author of The Problem With Plastic and President of Beyond Plastics. If this conversation left you feeling challenged, unsettled, or motivated, you're not alone. As Judith reminds us, the goal isn't perfection, it's participation. Real change comes when many people do what they can imperfectly while pushing together for better systems, better laws, and real choices. You can learn more about Judith’s work, explore the latest research on plastics and health, and find ways to take action at beyondplastics.org. We also encourage you to seek out The Problem with Plastic, and when you're done, pass it along or donate it to your local library. Thank you for listening and for being part of a community that believes hope is not passive. It's something we practice. Learn more about our work at hawthornevalley.org. We extend our gratitude to Grammy award-winning artist Aaron Dessner for providing our wonderful soundtrack. And to Aaron Ping for his outstanding editing work.