Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

UDC to Host ‘Plastics: Damning the Delaware’ Presentation on April 6

Creshkoff began checking glass-clad buildings in lower Manhattan in 1997 for bird collisions. The effort was adopted by NYC Audubon and is now known as Project Safe Flight. A vegetarian for ethical reasons since age 10 and full vegan since 2019 to reduce her carbon footprint, Judith Enck’s Beyond Plastic Pollution class inspired her to turn her skills to fight the prevalence of plastic.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

The Titans of Plastic: Pennsylvania Becomes the Newest Sacrifice Zone for America’s Plastic Addiction.

For the residents who live nearby, Shell’s big bet on plastic represents a new chapter in the same story that’s plagued the region for decades: An extractive industry moves in, exports natural resources at a tremendous profit—most of which flow to outsiders—and leaves poverty, pollution, and illness in its wake. First came the loggers, oil barons, and coal tycoons. Then there were the steel magnates and the fracking moguls. Now it’s the titans of plastic.

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Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie

Collision Course: Will the Plastics Treaty Slow the Plastics Rush?

The interlacing pipelines of a massive new plastics facility gleam in the sunshine beside the rolling waters of the Ohio River. I’m sitting on a hilltop above it, among poplars and birdsongs in rural Beaver County, Pennsylvania, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. The area has experienced tremendous change over the past few years — with more soon to come. The ethane “cracker plant” belongs to Royal Dutch Shell, and after 10 years and $6 billion it’s about to go online. Soon it will transform a steady flow of fracked Marcellus gas into billions of plastic pellets — a projected 1.6 million tons of them per year, each the size of a pea.

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