What does it take to bring together the Attorney General of California, the first American to summit Annapurna 1 (in 1978), the President of the Canadian Climate Institute, the co-founder of an environmental justice organization in Louisiana, the Chief Scientific Officer of the Food Packaging Forum, an entire high school environmental club, and three members of NRC’s Plastics Subcommittee?
In a word: plastic.
In November, NRC board members Jeremy Drake, Kristine Kubat, and Marialyce Pedersen attended the Plastic Pollution Solutions Expo and TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch event in Santa Monica, CA. Hosted by the Plastic Pollution Coalition and partners, these events gathered entrepreneurs, artists, academics, activists, and others for two days of inspiration focused on solutions to the plastics and petrochemical crisis.
On the first day, the Plastic Pollution Solutions Expo brought brilliant innovators who have risen to the challenge of replacing ubiquitous plastics—think nylon twine, polystyrene foam, dropper caps, foodware, shampoo bottles—with truly sustainable solutions that retain plastic-like functionality, without the fossil fuels. Viable Gear, Cruz Foam, and Gob use biobased materials like seaweed, pea residue, shrimp shells, and mycelium to create polymers that don’t pollute. They were joined at the expo with companies like Steelys, Ahimsa, and Plaine Products that are helping consumers replace single-use plastics with reusable metal alternatives.
On the second day, the TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch assembled more than 40 visionary speakers and performers for 8 hours of storytelling, music, aha moments, and big ideas. Serving as a sequel to a TEDx event with the same name that was originally produced in 2010, this mesmerizing kaleidoscope of science, politics, care, imagination, words, and sounds swirled into a singular message: We must act together now—with everything we can muster—to protect our collective future from plastic and toxic petrochemicals by scaling existing and new solutions.
The diversity represented at these events, speaks to plastic’s universal impact on our lives. Plastic has been found at the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trenches, in wildlife, plants, our air, our bodies, and in our brains. It is everywhere anyone has ever looked. Our concern in 2010 was that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was out there floating somewhere between California and Hawai’i harming seabirds and other ocean life. In 2025, our concern is that the garbage patch is inside each of us with the true scale of human harm as yet unknown.
These events were an opportunity for the NRC to connect with people working at the forefront of solutions to the plastic crisis and to include their perspectives in NRC’s ongoing plastics policy effort. We want to understand your perspective, too. Please respond to the NRC Plastics Survey today!
