In Commemoration of Earth Day 2022, Cultural Affairs and the Sustainability Committee are bringing Megan J. Wolff to lecture on Facing the Plastic Pollution Crisis. “Plastic is one of the greatest environmental and health threats of our time. Plastic pollutes our air, water, soil, and bodies, threatens our wildlife and ecosystems, increases illness, widens inequalities, and hastens the climate crisis. The United States is the largest producer of plastic waste in the world,” states Wolff who is the Policy Director at Beyond Plastics, a nationwide project with the purpose of eliminating plastics pollution. Come at 6:30pm to the Rowley Center for Science and Engineering, Sandra and Alan Gerry Forum 010 on Thursday, April 21, 2022 or via zoom - link: https://sunyorange.zoom.us/j/91511046262 for this highly informative event.

Because it is not biodegradable,
all the plastic that has ever manufactured
is still present on earth.

Beyond Plastics seeks to educate the media, policymakers, and the public on the plastic pollution crisis; encourage businesses to eliminate single-use plastics; train students to become leaders in the anti-plastics movement; and help block new plastic manufacturing and plastic burning facilities.

Megan J. Wolff is the dedicated Policy Director at Beyond Plastics. She holds a BA in English from Wesleyan University and an MPH and PhD in Public Health History and Policy from Columbia University. Prior to joining Beyond Plastics, Dr. Wolff worked as a policy researcher at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her decision to focus on environmental policy came from a growing sense that the most pressing public health threat we now face is climate change, a feeling increasingly shared by other health practitioners. “Plastics are critical because they serve as a “wedge” issue, drawing together so many of the problems of extraction, emissions, and toxic waste that threaten the biosphere and those who inhabit it,” she states.

Questions may be directed to cultural@sunyorange.edu and/or
Kirsten.gabrielsen@sunyorange.edu
website: www.sunyorange.edu/culturalaffairs

Image descriptions from top to bottom: Beyond Plastics - Bennington College logo; marine debris collecting on a shoreline by Asher Pacht; photo of Megan Wolff by Jim Smith.