Name: Matias

Social Justice Group: Environment: Plastic Pollution

Date of Fieldwork: December 19, 2018

Name of Organization: Environmental Law Division

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Hilary Meltzer and Nathan Taylor

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We had a facetime with Hillary Meltzer and Nathan Taylor where we talked about bans on plastics and discussed why stopping plastic pollution is so complex.

What I learned:

After my interview with Hillary Meltzer, I learned that there is no one way to stop plastic pollution. I learned that in order to solve this problem, we need to understand the variety of things that cause plastic pollution in the first place. To fight plastic pollution we need to find compromise not only with powerful business owners but with ourselves as well.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

I learned that change doesn’t come easy and that it takes time to bring change. It is nearly impossible to stop plastic pollution with one ban. The fight against plastic pollution is like a boxing match, you won’t always have the chance to make the powerful hits, you need to keep throwing the smaller punches which have a big effect in the long run. This is what Hillary Meltzer does, instead of trying to ban all plastics, she tries to ban the plastics whose costs outweigh the reward.