😄 Embracing Radical Optimism at Our Regional Conference in Philly 🫱🏼🫲🏿
In late March, advocates, community leaders, and organizers from across the region gathered for the “Radical Optimism for a World Beyond Plastic” conference hosted by Beyond Plastics at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA. It was a day to reconnect, share strategies, and renew our collective commitment to ending single-use plastic pollution.
The theme, “When People Lead, Leaders Follow,” grounded the day in a powerful truth: lasting policy change begins with people organizing in their own communities. Throughout the conference, participants explored how to strengthen local advocacy and build a growing movement to confront plastics that harm our environment, threaten public health, and disproportionately burden environmental justice communities.
The opening panel brought together Oriana Holmes-Price of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, longtime activist Bigga Dre of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL), and Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. Grounded in lived experience, the discussion focused on environmental racism and how industrial pollution and plastic waste systems disproportionately burden communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, often turning them into “sacrifice zones” where environmental and health harms accumulate.
Bigga Dre of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL), Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, and Oriana Holmes-Price of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance.
Aerial view showing the location of the Covanta incinerator.
Panelists shared powerful stories, including the ongoing efforts of community members in Chester, PA to shut down the Covanta trash incinerator.
Located along the Delaware River on Highland Avenue, just blocks from a residential neighborhood, the facility burns municipal solid waste to generate electricity and processes approximately 1.2 million tons of garbage each year. This waste is sourced from across the region, including Delaware County, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and as far away as New York City.
The trailer for The Sacrifice Zone drove these themes home. The documentary centers on Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, a working-class, predominantly immigrant community that has long been surrounded by polluting infrastructure, including incinerators, power plants, highways, and other industrial facilities.
The Beyond Plastics team facilitated a series of workshops - some interactive - focused on movement-building, community organizing strategy, base activation, and practical tactics for strengthening advocacy campaigns. Participants explored who holds influence over policy decisions and how to strategically engage those actors, using a local plastic bag ban as a case study. The workshops also emphasized activating community support while centering the communities most impacted by environmental harms in organizing efforts.
Local environmental groups shared their recent work, including both their successes and ongoing challenges. This included Beyond Plastics MoCo Maryland, Three Rivers Waterkeeper and PennEnvironment’s lawsuit against Styropek USA, and Beyond Plastics New Jersey’s recent “Skip the Stuff” policy win.
Participants gained more than new tools, taking away renewed purpose, deeper connections, and a stronger sense of what’s possible. The conversations were hard at times, particularly when participants shared lived experiences that made the scale of systemic inequities palpable to all. Those moments also served as a reminder of why this work matters and of the need to stay connected to the people—both inside and outside our communities—who are most directly impacted by convenience-driven, polluting products and the extractive industries that produce them. They also reminded us to let those realities ground how we organize and show up.
Ending plastic pollution will take policy change, grassroots organizing, and long-term collaboration. But the energy in the room made it clear that the communities most impacted must be centered in leading this work. When we stay rooted in those lived experiences and move forward together, we can build real momentum—and a future beyond plastic.
We are already planning our conference for 2027, and look forward to sharing those details later in the year.
The Beyond Plastics Network consists of five volunteer groups which include Local Groups, Affiliates, Advocates & Organizers, Speakers Bureau, and Community Partners. We offer online and offline support to ensure these groups have what they need to run campaigns for policy change. Supporting us = supporting them! We appreciate you!🙏