Dianna Cohen 0:00 Cool. Well, thank you. And it's just plastic. Not with an 'S'. Yeah, Plastic Pollution Coalition. No, I was just wondering because I've known Molly Bingham for a really long time, and we've helped prepare and push out the web reports for the water microplastics in water and bottled water and tap water. Nate Seltenrich 0:20 So, okay. This is my first time working with them. Dianna Cohen 0:24 Oh okay, I just wanted to let you know that just in case you... I don't know. I just I was like, does he know that I know, Molly? I wasn't sure. Nate Seltenrich 0:34 Yeah, I gathered from your message that you'd work with them on the previous... the bottle of water story or package? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I may need to slip in a note about that. So what exactly would you say was your role in that? Just to be precise, and if it can determine my needs. Dianna Cohen 1:01 Yeah, well, we helped share those reports when they were released, both of them for the top water and for the bottle. Yeah, just for transparency or whatever. Nate Seltenrich 1:23 So yeah, this package is looking at, essentially, better, which we're going to also seek to define alternatives to, or evaluating alternatives to single use, or disposable food packaging products. So trying to evaluate some of the many options and products that are out there, develop a framework to help other people evaluate options when they come across them, and look at trends, you know, situated within the context of COVID, and trends in use, and those sorts of products. So we're not looking at all food packaging, necessarily, trying to limit it more to the single-use and disposable as opposed to the kind of grocery store, you know, the more durable packages, you might put in your pantry or whatever. We might address those. But so, you know, talking about plastics kind of encompasses both. But yeah, I wanted to maybe just ask about a few different areas oftha. I'm not sure where your individual expertise would lie, but let me ask first about; because a big part of this and a big category of products that I'm sifting through is bioplastics, and all the various technologies that are being developed to make plastic polymers. And I know that there's issues with chemicals still being used in those additives and plasticizers. and there's also issues on the other end with recycling and compostability, both of which we're taking into account. So maybe we can start with a brief introduction on your perspective on bioplastics or where your work aligns with? Another piece of that, actually, is just that brands are kind of adopting; major food brands are adopting bio-based plastics and have been for a while, but you know, that's a very visible technology to consumers. So what's your approach toward that class? Dianna Cohen 3:45 Well, our approach is, you know, we're obviously watching this, but we're less interested in; it's not that we're less interested, hold on. We haven't seen bioplastics that are better per se. You know, you run into a whole problem. There's been a big push for bioplastics made from corn. Nate Seltenrich 4:14 Yeah, VOA. Dianna Cohen 4:15 Yeah, and one of the problems with that, of course, is how we grow industrial crops, and the kind of energy and resources and fertilizer and chemicals that go into growing that material. But then, you know, you can make plastics out of almost anything. You can use many, many carbon sources to make it. One of the true problems with it is the chemicals that are added to plasticize a carbon source, and I'm going to preface this too, just by saying I'm not a scientist, I'm a visual artist. I feel like that's important to say. But you know, and included or not, but I mean, I continue to learn about this . I was a biology major in college, but I grew up to be an artist. So my interest in this obviously lies in kind of looking at design and materials and a concern for what is toxic. And so the chemical additives, just going back to what I was saying before, the chemical additives that are added to the carbon source, whether you're making plastic out of any source, fossil fuel source, or petroleum byproduct, or ethylene cracking, or you're making it from corn, or potato, or corn husk, or sugar, sugarcane, like whatever, apples, you know, whatever you're making it out of; one of the concerns is that the chemicals that you add, these plasticizing chemicals are groups called disphenols. Like people feel; people all got on the bandwagon of like, this is BPA free, and I think companies jumped on BPA free quickly because it was easy to just change a molecule or two and use BPB or BPC or BPS or BPZ instead of BPA. But I've had two meetings at the CDC, with the head of the endocrine disruption department. Her name's Dr. Antonia Calafat and both times she's explained to me that the replacements for BPA are equally as bad, if not worse, to BPA. Nate Seltenrich 6:54 Yes, yeah, that's actually where my, not in education, but as a journalist, that's more where my background is. I've written a ton about chemical migration and BPA and phthalates, endocrine disruptors, and you're totally right. Dianna Cohen 7:17 That's great, thank you for giving a damn about that, and researching it and writing about it. Just at a more personal level, to back up for a second; you know, when I was a teenager, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, when I was 13, and she died when I was 17. And the type of breast cancer she had was estrogen receptive. And this is like more than 35 years ago. So you know, that doesn't mean anything to you when you're a teenager. And frankly, it didn't mean anything to me, even when I was in college and studying science. But as I've come to learn about, and the way I came to plastics is; I'm a visual artist, but I've been making work out of cut-up plastic bags and sewing them back together and making two and three dimensional art pieces out of them for nearly 30 years, like 29 years. So I started learning things by working with the materials, and watching some of my pieces fissure, break apart some of the bags and some of my pieces, and getting excited and thinking that it meant that the plastic was organic. It just was breaking down like our bodies will break down, like everything in nature. Nature's design is to break down and go back to the earth. But plastic is like this Frankenstein that doesn't break down in the same kind of cycle as a human life. I mean, we don't even know exactly, but they estimate that a plastic water bottle will last for 400 years. Nate Seltenrich 8:48 Yeah, it's pretty mind boggling, especially when you consider they're used for a minute or two, often. Dianna Cohen 8:54 Yeah. So I mean, so that's like, part of my whole personal journey to this is that I'm deeply concerned about the toxic; the chemicals that are used to make plastics, whether it's plastic for bioplastic, and what if that is reaching into our food and beverages and beauty products and health products or vitamins or medicines? And then what impact that has on human health, animal health; that's getting into our water, it's in our air. How is it impacting our health? And, you know, what are the long term effects of that? We have a wonderful scientific advisory board, but I've had multiple conversations with a number of them, who really are experts, they're experts; their expertise is in endocrine disruption and toxic chemicals and chemicals of concern. And they say that plastics and the chemicals used in plastic are creating intergenerational changes. Nate Seltenrich 10:06 Yes, so have you been aware through them of any... One of the questions I am hoping to answer is, which I haven't yet is; because depending on the type, the use of the plastic, which kind of determines which additives might need to be in it, is it possible to formulate some that are both bio-based and free of any of these chemicals, even if you know, some cutting edge technology? Perhaps? Have you heard of anything like that? Dianna Cohen 10:40 I have not heard of that yet. But on a completely, like I call this completely different, but it's really related; there are so many wonderful companies that are working to scale up right now that are producing really, I don't think these things should be called plastics or bioplastics in any way, because they're not made in the traditional sense of how plastic is made. So for example, Loliware, I don't know if you're familiar with that company, they're doing seaweed, algae straws, and films and things like that. That is very interesting to me. A number of companies that are doing pulp paper products, and, you know, working hard to make sure that those paper products don't have PFAS chemicals in them and other chemicals of concern. And then there's just been this terrific, huge movement of folks creating refill, reuse, infrastructure and models and products. And then, of course, the most natural thing, in my opinion, is glass. But there's different kinds of metals. We're seeing a kind of explosion now of use of aluminum. But of course, all of that aluminum has a plastic coating. So usually BPA or a BPA substitute, to be non-reactive. Nate Seltenrich 12:20 Yeah. In cans, it might be... Dianna Cohen 12:25 Cans, aluminum cans, aluminum bottles... Nate Seltenrich 12:28 Even in like water bottles? Dianna Cohen 12:30 Aluminum water bottles? Yeah. All of it's got to have it. If it doesn't have it, you would either be tasting the aluminum or getting that like, pzang feeling that you remember. I don't know, I don't have any metal fillings anymore. But I used to get it when I had a couple metal fillings. You know, if you sift out of it, aluminum cans. Nate Seltenrich 12:55 Yeah, yeah, some of those that you mentioned. The seaweed and the various plant fibers and pulps and there's pressed palm leaves, which are supposedly made with no additives or chemical coatings. They're just heat pressed. Yeah, some of the things that are intriguing to me as well, so I'm trying to look at those and potentially highlight those that are based on available information which look to be promising. Dianna Cohen 13:29 Yeah I know, there's interesting stuff. I mean, I would say like, it's very confusing; and incredibly, it's not only confusing for the consumer, bioplastics and compostable plastics, but you know, it's confusing, even for people who have expertise in this area. And the chasing arrows emblem really doesn't help very much, particularly when there's no market for any of these materials anyway, or very little market for them. I mean, it's one of thedisasters of the; it's wonderful to be divesting and moving away from fossil fuels towards solar and wind and all these great energy sources, free and less toxic energy sources, it's terrific. But at the same time, what it's doing is it's making the price of that material drop so low, that it's basically nearly free for people to make plastic out of it. And so we're getting this glut of plastic production. I would also say it's good news that there are different new kinds of compostable plastics being made from like a plant-based carbon source, rather than petroleum. Like literally the bad news is that you need a large industrial composting facility to break this stuff down afterwards, and a lot of recycling facilities consider PLA a contaminant. And then the other problem, of course, is that everything else is just listed with the number 'seven' which is an utterly confusing. I think it's a system that was designed to be confusing for people. But it's also, you know, misrepresentation, because by putting the chasing arrows on everything, people, including myself, until I knew more, believed that everything that had that on it could be recycled and was being recycled. Nate Seltenrich 15:44 Yeah, I think fortunately, that's an idea that is beginning to well, at least, maybe where we are, where recycling has been entrenched for a while, people are starting to realize that's not necessarily the case. But when you look at a national or global scale, there's so much confusion. The other thing, as I mentioned with that, since we are looking at the end-of-life, disposal, even if they can, you know; consumers knowledgeable about what can be composted, and what can be recycled, and does their due diligence, it depends on the availability of local facilities that can process them, like for the compostable plastics, and for them to recognize it as such, and then accept it. And once you start narrowing it down like that, it becomes such a; it seems to be you know, there's maybe a greenwashing where... Dianna Cohen 16:46 It is green washing! And it's set up to fail, systems set up to fail. And I believe that industry knows that. And that they continue to; every time this comes up, like historically, they do something like launch a big multimillion dollar, kind of PR campaign that's all about optics. And maybe they'll open some new; what's everybody talking about now; these new optical sorters, you know, but none of this stuff matters if one, these materials are not considered valuable materials. Number two, the virgin material is cheaper. Number three, the material that's coming into recycling facilities is potentially, has even other pollutants attached to the surface or, whatever can be made from them may be carrying other pollutants with it. And I mean, just the whole system is broken down, and this infrastructure doesn't really exist in a lot of places, not just talking about here in the US, but internationally. So it's so interesting to me, like all these cleanup efforts, they sound really great. But a lot of the cleanup efforts don't go anywhere. They're just a mechanism for passively collecting something in some way from a river, from the ocean, you know, catching it in a net when it's coming down the LA river, or whatever, but it is not followed through to them. What happens to that material is their existing infrastructure to address it. And a lot of what's happening to it around the world is it's being burnt, and it may have different names that sound more fantastic and wonderful, euphemistic, you know, names like pyrolysis. Nate Seltenrich 18:47 Waste energy in general Dianna Cohen 18:48 Waste energy, waste to fuel, incineration, just things that people don't; the general public doesn't know what any of that means. That they're basically all just forms of burning. Nate Seltenrich 19:02 And then there's, just reading a story about, you know, if bioplastics end up in a landfill, as they're also likely to do in California, in areas where there's not a lot of trash burning, then they will release methane; the climate concern. I read one quote from someone suggesting that it's actually better to use traditional plastics that are recycled than to use bioplastics that go to a landfill, from a climate perspective. Dianna Cohen 19:40 Well, I actually think ultimately, it's better to shift to; my feeling is that shifting to better plastics in terms of like, whatever that is, that's more recyclable or is plant-based because you feel like you not using fossil fuels is less of a solution than just shifting away from the plastic altogether. So basically, shifting to sustainable and reusable materials is the best solution for human health, animal health, waterways, ocean, our environmental, our air; etc. Ultimately, it would be to shift to renewables and renewables that are made out of non-toxic materials. And I think it's because I am an artist, I think we should be aiming for, you know; what are the real goals here that we need to hit, and not something that's kind of makeshift in between. So although we're a global coalition, and we're now more than 1,200 organizations and businesses and actually worth about 600 businesses, are just over 600 businesses. So in the last three years, more businesses have joined us than just organizations, which I think demonstrates a shift in consciousness, to businesses waking up, and realizing that they need to begin to take steps to reduce their plastic footprint. And I think that's really a great positive. But at the same time, ultimately, you know, what is the world that we have the opportunity to create? And which directions do we need to move into to achieve that? Nate Seltenrich 21:34 So what do you think about all that in the context of COVID? Have you guys weighed in on that? Obviously, there is a fear, and maybe it's just in some cases, that another kind of marketing scheme to say we are safe, when maybe it doesn't make a ton of difference as far as the transmission of the virus goes. Dianna Cohen 21:58 Yeah, we've been very involved in addressing that. Nate Seltenrich 22:03 Jane mentioned there was a fact sheet or something produced around that you were involved in. Dianna Cohen 22:07 Yeah, we're involved in a fact sheet that was created for that; that I can send you. You know, the plastic industry basically, as soon as the coronavirus took hold, all their lobbyists immediately tried to block laws prohibiting single use plastic. Think even the New York Times reported on it back whenever, you know, including plastic bag bans. Basically, in the short term, there was there was a study that came out from the National Institute of Health, the CDC, UCLA and Princeton University in the New England Journal of Medicine that indicated that the virus could be stable on plastic surfaces for as long as two to three days. So basically, to summarize that, plastic does not like inherently make something clean and safe. Nate Seltenrich 23:09 It's this idea, though, that we don't want to be giving a customer something that was handled by another customer, even if it was washed. I came across this in my area, that the restaurant that normally washes its plates and tableware and was all of a sudden giving everyone disposables. This was like a month ago and that just struck me as terribly wasteful. But you know, they're doing it because they want to convey safety. Dianna Cohen 23:48 Yeah, but sadly, just in my lifetime and traveling to Japan; I'm a total Japanophile, right. And just in my lifetime traveling to Japan, I've watched all these incredibly beautiful traditions of using reusable bento boxes that were you know, wood and lacquered or things that were steel or different kinds of ceramics and things being tied with cloth and fabric and all these beautiful traditional long-standing traditions, Japanese, aesthetic traditions just get tossed out the door and replaced with decorative plastic. Nate Seltenrich 24:29 Just this year you mean? Dianna Cohen 24:31 No, I've just been watching it happen over the last 30 years, 40 years. Yeah, I think the first time I went to Japan was in 85. So yeah, however long that is. Yeah, 30 years or so. And I've just watched that slowly kind of sneak up and it's such a bummer. It's such a bummer because there's so much beauty there but it's being replaced by plastic because it gives people a false sense that things are clean. And basically, you know, using more single use plastic disposables during this time, this year of the pandemic, potentially increases your exposure. I mean, well, it does increase your exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, but it may also be a vehicle of virus transmission. Because like I said, these studies demonstrated that the virus lives longer on plastic than it does, for example, on wood. It's interesting because we work with a lot of groups that are involved in food service, or reusable systems, or refillable systems or restaurants. And they all just follow the protocol from the CDC and the FDA that they've always had to follow, which is, you know, you wash things in hot water with soap, and you dry them, and you serve people with food on them. And so there are guidelines from all these organizations and if that protocol is followed, there shouldn't be any problem. But I mean, I feel like the plastic industry and their lobbyists really used COVID as an opportunity to just push their agenda, is what they did. I'm sorry, I shouldn't even say I feel like, I mean that's what I've observed. So I'm sorry to use language like that, that makes it sound like it's my opinion, unless I'm telling you my opinion. Okay, I'm trying to think what else I could share with you that might be useful. I don't know if you're aware of all of the work that we do, but earlier this year, we produced the Healthy Pregnancy Guide, which is really a plastic-free pregnancy guide, but it's actually really a plastic-free living guide that I think would be useful to anyone who's just interested in figuring out how to reduce exposure to plastic and chemicals with plastic in their life with their family. Nate Seltenrich 27:31 That could be an interesting supplemental thing we could provide because that's part , highlighting alternatives to disposables. is, you know, part of the goal, provided that it's warranted. But yeah, and so I'd love to see that if you are able to send it and I also want to ask about the... I watched this video that Jane from Food Packaging Forum sent, and I believe she said you are, or at least the Plastic Pollution Coalition was involved in the scorecard. Yeah, that seemed really interesting and the the six factors that were laid out there, I thought, you know, that was very clear and helpful, and that could go a long way towards, you know, to evaluating these many alternatives that are out there, which are so confusing to navigate. Dianna Cohen 28:37 Yeah, so I've been one of the leads in that accelerator project that where we've been developing a scorecard. Nate Seltenrich 28:43 What's the status of that? Dianna Cohen 28:46 I believe that we're gonna release a beta version of it in the coming months. Nate Seltenrich 28:53 Is there anything else I can look at online other than the brief presentation about it? Dianna Cohen 28:58 Um, let me just see the best link to send to you about that. It may be on this blue green brown site where we're holding things. let me just take a look and I'll send you a link to that. I'm actually surprised there wasn't a link to it in what Jane Muncke sent you. Nate Seltenrich 29:22 Unless I missed it... she sent me something from like a webinar or something earlier, this year. Dianna Cohen 29:27 Yeah, it's a webinar that she just produced from Food Packaging Forum. She's one of our scientific advisors as well so we appreciate their work. She's great. Nate Seltenrich 29:42 Yeah, I don't know... I think she just sent that unless I missed another link from her on that. But that was very interesting. And then similar to what we'd like to offer to other news organizations through this package. Obviously not a built out web tool, but just to list some criteria that will help frame thinking, you know, looking at climate impacts, looking at water, looking at chemicals and feed sources and end-of-life. Dianna Cohen 30:15 Oh, well, one of the things that we just produced about just a month ago. We were invited by Ted Countdown to do produce our own TEDx in that week, which was the week that they launched Ted countdown; was the ted.com brand, in conjunction with another organization. It started, I think, on October 10th and so we produced a TEDx that was called TEDx plastic pollution coalition and it's an hour of programming. And our focus, the focus for all of countdown was to talk about solutions to address climate change. But we really wanted to make sure that we helped highlight the interconnectedness of the relationship between plastic and climate, plastic and health, and plastic and social justice and equity. And so that's one hour long, and I can send you a link to that. It turned out really, really well. We repurposed a couple TED talks that we had been part of or produced back in 2010. One of them is just really even more appropriate today. I mean, appropriate is the wrong word. It was vital 10 years ago, and it is even more vital today. And evergreen, which was the talk that Dan Jones gave. It's called the economic injustice of plastic. He gave that at our TEDx grey Pacific Garbage Patch conference that we produced in 2010. But for our countdown event, we produced a new talk by Yvette Ariano, formerly from Taha Barrios. She's based in Houston. And I just I'm very, very proud of the way that we curated the talk. So I don't know if you have a whole hour to look at something or you'd like to provide it to other people as a resource. But it's a it's a pretty concise roundup of... It also features a bunch of youth activists who were working on this, including some of our Plastic Pollution Coalition youth Ambassadors, Shea Bastilla. who had just given a new TED talk for Ted. So it's got the TED model and the way the TEDx model works and countdown worked is if you wanted to, you could just curate something based on the content they were creating. But you could kind of curate your own version of it. So we did that, but we interspersed it with original content, like a monologue from Alfre Woodard, the actress who's one of our notable coalition ambassadors, and a song from Jackson Browne that he recorded with his band. And we interspersed that with this, like, you know, I don't know if you saw Amanda Gordon, she's a Nobel laureate. I think she's only 14 years old or so she's an incredible poet, spoken word artists poet. Nate Seltenrich 33:44 I didn't know. Dianna Cohen 33:45 Yeah, well, anyway so I think that we curated something really strong, that helps people see the connection between all of these things. That was our goal. And I had a lot of interesting feedback from folks who didn't see it, and a lot of folks who saw it in Australia and India, and other places, were saying, you've given me a lot to think about; I was aware that plastic was a problem, for example, in the ocean, or that we need to use reusables versus single-use, but I had not really thought about the fact that our use of plastic when we produce plastic, that we release greenhouse gases, and thatwe're contributing to climate change. With single-use, we burn and incinerate things afterwards, and on and on and on, like, they really haven't thought about the connection to health or how the entire chain from extraction through manufacturing, production, use, and end-of-life, waste management, disproportionately impacts lower income communities. Nate Seltenrich 34:49 Yeah, and in the scorecard, I noticed that for plastic pollution, it was a lifestyle or a lifecycle estimate, as opposed to, you know, is this a plastic single-use product or not; but it attempted to take into account any plastic involved in the production, maybe transportation of the item? Dianna Cohen 35:23 Yeah, we've been trying to round it out. So it's a more realistic view. Because the problem is, if you just go by weight, plastic is gonna win. And I don't know if I would like you to quote me on that, but it's just, I'm saying to you; that's the problem with plastic. I mean, the problem with that, is it's a remarkable material. I mean, I've just been making artwork and showing it in galleries and foundations and museums out of this material for like, almost 30 years. So I have a fascination with the material. And it's incredibly versatile and useful and has replaced more expensive materials. And, you know, when it was originally invented, it was in, you know, as backlight. It was used to create jewelry and eyeglass frames and combs and things that people were designing with an intention to be used for, and passed down through generations; things of beauty, you know, and to replace metals and tortoise shell, and ivory and these more rare materials, right. So it was kind of genius, when it was invented. And, it's genius in a way I'm sitting at a table talking to you. And I'm looking at my computer, I'm looking at my, you know, external hard drive, I'm looking at a microphone, I'm looking at, you know, an extension cord next to me, and like, you know, there's eight to ten things on the table right in front of me that are all made out of plastic. So it's an incredibly useful material. I think the problem with it is that we came to some point, and it was probably right after World War Two, where there was like a fork in the road, and we really took the wrong fork. We took the fork too, which was the petrochemical industry saying, God, we've got these by-products; we're like having to bury in big drums, and dumping rivers and oceans when nobody's looking. And why don't we... Oh, we can mix it with these other chemicals and form it into shape. Some things that are useful. Let's go that route. I don't know if you've ever read this article Nate, but there's a great piece. I think we shared it as a blog post, we got permission from them, but you can look it up. It's called 'A Beautiful If Evil Strategy', and it's about the petrochemical industry. It's really about corporations, creating 'Keep America Beautiful' and the crying Indian ad that was the bad council ad, and how all of that was part of a bigger strategy to move the responsibility for pollution onto consumers. Nate Seltenrich 38:14 Yeah. I've heard that concept, but I've never heard of that... It's a book you said? Dianna Cohen 38:19 No, it's an article. It's very thorough, though. But you should absolutely read it, it will really help inform your perspective. It's very well done. We didn't write it, we just got permission to share it. If you can't find it, I'll send. I can actually just look it up what we're talking. Let me see if I can find it. It's just called 'A Beautiful If Evil Strategy'. Nate Seltenrich 38:41 Yeah, that's an important. I might address that point as well, just because we as consumers continue to hear that message that it's up to us to make the right decisions, which is very difficult, if not impossible. It also releases the manufacturers of the materials and others from some of the responsibility for the problems that they end up creating. Yeah, definitely worth mentioning in this context. Yeah, I will look that up as well of you're able to find it. Feel free to share. I think I just had maybe one more thing I want to ask. Just circling back to you know, disposable food packaging, especially things for takeout, delivery, things people are maybe doing more of these days. Is there a specific type of plastic disposable that you think that you would most like to see displaced by a more sustainable and more healthy alternative, maybe ruling out the plastic water bottle because that's the kind of thing we all know about. But is there something else you know, maybe styrofoam, clamshell food containers, where those are available or anything else that you think would be a high priority to replace? Dianna Cohen 40:08 Well I just in the last two years have begun to learn about that denser, heavier plastic that's been used now for I don't know how many years; that's black on the bottom and clear on top for food. Like, especially grab and go and stuff, like takeaway. Have you seen that? And a lot of like Chinese restaurants have replaced the paper boxes, which, you know, granted, the paper boxes, I'm fairly certain have a plastic coating in them, to make them water resistant. But a lot of those places replaced their food packaging with this black dense plastic with a clear plastic lid. Well, I think that this needs to be researched a little bit because I haven't read specific data on it, but I was told that that plastic, black plastic, is made with a certain amount of recycled content, and that there's the possibility that that recycled content is coming from old electronics. And so Iwhat I would say is that, while I agree that... I think we should be designing things with plastic, and plastic components that are meant to be reused again, but I would recommend that people not eat or drink out of plastic, and that we find ways to move away from packaging, and clamshell packaging or in this stuff, because it's bad for our health. I mean, that would be my biggest recommendation. So I have trouble looking at like any one particular... they're all heinous. Nate Seltenrich 42:03 Yeah, I mean, there's forks and straws and plates, and, you know... Dianna Cohen 42:08 They're all heinous. I'd like to see the whole planet move to a consciousness of 100%, you know, valuable materials, where we all only need, you know, especially if we're traveling or we're on the go, a spork or a fork and a knife and a spoon. And we have reusable ones that we use over and over and over again. This whole idea of convenience that's been marketed to us is not convenient for our health or for the planet. Nate Seltenrich 42:54 That was ultimately Jane's kind of overarching statement as well. I asked her, similarly about any promising alternatives she'd seen. And efore answering that, it was, you know, we need to look at this whole concept of convenience and disposability. Dianna Cohen 43:16 Yeah, we do, and we also need to do everything possible to create a system shift on this to reusable and refillable, and there's a big opportunity here for glass. Because glass, if you don't break it is ultimately reusable. And there are even types of glass and glass bottles being manufactured now that are unbreakable or very difficult to break. And that to me is the ultimate. Like when I'm offered a choice, I will always go for something in glass. And I mean, you know another really; it's gonna sound like a small place but I think we also need to pass policy that requires every company that bottles or packages anything to connect the cap. Nate Seltenrich 44:16 Hmm....Interesting. Dianna Cohen 44:19 The same way that was the redesign done on aluminum beverages. Nate Seltenrich 44:28 Just like a swing top type thing. Dianna Cohen 44:30 Something like that. Nate Seltenrich 44:36 Yeah, those are often plastic. Dianna Cohen 44:39 Well, I mean, you know, even the caps I'm looking at; some glass, sparkling water bottles, like a room away from me right now. I can see them from here and I'm thinking about the fact that tops are aluminum and that they've got a plastic coating. Nate Seltenrich 44:56 Yeah, well thank you. This has been very helpful and it's been great to hear your perspective. Maybe one last question, you mentioned various kind of chemical experts that you work with, is there anyone else that you would recommend who maybe who knows a lot about chemistry of bioplastics or green, you know, the green chemistry area, so to speak. Dianna Cohen 45:26 I mean, I would recommend you talk to Arlene Dlum or someone from a group called the Green Chemistry Institute. It's D.L.U.M. Arlene. She's an amazing person to talk to you anyway, because she is a mountain climber. She's a Natgeo explorer and she led the first all women summit of Annapurna in 1978. She's just an awesome person, and she's a chemist, and her area of focus is chemicals of concern, but specifically, flame retardants. She gave a talk at our TED conference in 2010 that's still up on our Plastic Pollution Coalition YouTube channel about flame retardants, and how they've been linked to hypothyroid issues and all kinds of stuff. Nate Seltenrich 46:26 Yeah. Dianna Cohen 46:27 Anyway, I mean, I can talk about this and I'm like a total nerd, geek about it for you know, like a week straight. So if you need any more information, or we can help you in any way, let me know. I'm just trying to think if there are any other scientific advisors, you can look on our website at our scientific advisors. And just reach out to any of them I think Phil Landrigan is amazing. Pete Myers... We did the Healthy Pregnancy guide. And we did a healthy baby guide two years ago with Made Safe, which is found it was founded by Amy Seth. She'd be an amazing person for you to talk to when it comes to like packaging and chemicals. She's based in New York. Nate Seltenrich 47:17 Okay, that's great. I've not spoken with her before. Dianna Cohen 47:22 I can put her contact. Nate Seltenrich 47:28 Okay, well, yeah, I will drop a line if I need anything or any clarification or have any other follow ups. Sounds good. Dianna Cohen 47:39 I just put together a little email for you. And I'm just gonna add the links to the Healthy Pregnancy guide Ted Countdown and Amys Seth's Made Safe. Is there anything else? We talked about that, I put the article of a beautiful evil strategy for you. Nate Seltenrich 47:53 The fact sheet and anything else on the scorecard? Or the COVID fact sheet? Dianna Cohen 48:00 Yeah, the scorecard link. Okay, I'll put this together and will send them to you soon. Nate Seltenrich 48:09 Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. It's great to talk with you. Dianna Cohen 48:13 Nice to talk with you. And thanks for writing a piece about this. I know it's complicated, but it's good to try and help the public understand. Nate Seltenrich 48:22 Yeah, I like that this is geared towards a very general public audience. Some of the writing I've done in this area has been more scientific slash technical, often. So this is definitely geared towards general audience and helping local news organizations explain this to their readers. So I think that's cool. Yeah. Well enjoy the rest of your day and I'll try to be in touch one way or the other. Thank you. Dianna Cohen 48:51 Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.