Weds, 6/17/26 at 7:00 PM | Talk with Judith Enck and David Abel at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA
WHAT: Join Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and David Abel, award-winning Boston Globe reporter and documentary filmmaker for a free talk about the new book, “The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late.”
WHEN: Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET US
WHERE: The Brookline Booksmith
279 Harvard Street
Coolidge Corner
Brookline, MA 02446 (map)
RSVP: The event is free and open to all but the bookstore requires an RSVP online in advance.
Plastic is everywhere — wrapped around our food, stitched into our clothes, even coursing through our veins. What began as a marvel of modern science has become a toxic industry that is harming our health, polluting our planet, and driving climate change. According to a recent report in The Lancet, the world is in a plastics crisis, causing disease and death from infancy to old age, and covering the planet with 8 billion tons of plastic waste. Without bold new laws, these problems will only worsen. Plastic production has increased exponentially since single-use plastic’s start, from 2 million tons per year in 1950 to 450 million tons per year today. And production is expected to triple by 2060. Given that less than 6% of plastic is actually recycled in the United States, all that plastic will continue to harm us, our communities, and our environment.
The good news is there’s still time to turn off the tap and live in a world without pointless plastic. That’s the hopeful message at the heart of the new book, “The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late” from The New Press by Judith Enck and Beyond Plastics with Adam Mahoney.
The plastic pollution crisis is massive, systemic, and urgent. But “The Problem with Plastic” offers hope: We, collectively, have the power and influence to effectively slow the production of plastic. Plastic pollution is not inevitable; it’s the result of choices made by businesses, governments, and, to a lesser extent, everyday people. By equipping people with knowledge, hope, and an arsenal of solutions, we can put people and the planet before plastic, and save ourselves while there’s still time.
This event is free but advanced registration is encouraged. Click here to RSVP now.
About Our Speakers
Judith Enck is the founder and president of Beyond Plastics, whose mission is to end plastic pollution everywhere. She was appointed by President Obama to serve as regional administrator in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 and served as deputy secretary for the environment in the New York Governor’s Office. She is currently a professor at Bennington College.
David Abel is an award-winning reporter and documentary filmmaker. He's also a professor of journalism at Boston University. He spent 25 years as a reporter at The Boston Globe, where he was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. Abel has spent more than a decade covering climate change and other environmental issues. His work has won an Edward R. Murrow Award, the Ernie Pyle Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Feature Reporting. His films include the Emmy-nominated “Entangled,” which was broadcast on PBS, and other award-winning feature films, such as "In the Whale," “Inundation District,” “Lobster War,” and “Sacred Cod.” His most recent film, "The Petal Pusher," is an ode to New York City's Penn Station and his family's flower business there. It premiered at the DOCNYC Film Festival. Learn more about him at www.davidsabel.com.