Every generation, it seems, grapples with its own iteration of “worst current environmental catastrophe.” Currently, many young people blame Baby Boomers for failing to anticipate the climate crisis that now taints their hopes for a livable world in the future — and not without reason. For their part, Boomers can claim credit for the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, show before-and-after photos of smog in US cities or remind Gen Zers that they can now safely drink from or swim in the Hudson River, which used to turn a different color each week depending on how they were painting cars on the assembly line at the GM plant in Tarrytown.
Such evidence of positive change may soften the righteous anger of the young somewhat, but they are still likely to be baffled to learn that green activists of the 1960s and ‘70s saw two issues as the most urgent of their times: uncontrolled population growth — then seen as the root cause of all the other environmental horrors that were happening — and the proliferation of nuclear energy. Today, some whose top priority is climate change are questioning whether halting the construction of nuclear plants might have been a mistake. What’s worse: nuclear waste that remains toxic for half a million years, or rising sea levels that seem bound to swamp our coastal communities within a few decades?
Obviously, the battle to protect our environment has always been one that needs to be fought on many fronts. And today, it’s gradually dawning on people that the proliferation of plastics has already reached the crisis level. Even if humanity somehow succeeds in reducing the amount of CO2 that we’re pumping into the atmosphere before climate change reaches an irreversible tipping point, plastics are forever — and they’re already everywhere, from our oceans to our plumbing systems to our placentas. Worse, there’s no incentive for manufacturers to stop making and marketing more of them.
The news on plastic pollution is dauntingly bad on nearly every front. Microplastic particles can now be found in human reproductive systems. Poor people around the globe purchase and discard billions of tiny plastic “sachet” packets of products like laundry detergent because they can’t afford to buy full bottles. Recycling of such bottles isn’t working, especially since China decided to stop purchasing empty plastic containers from the rest of the world. PVC water pipes can make people sick. So can toxic fumes from burning plastic, such as those released by the recent derailment in East Palestine, Ohio of train cars carrying butyl acrylate and vinyl chloride.
The East Palestine disaster points up the intimate connection between the plastics boom and the fossil fuel industry, which is desperately seeking new ways to market petrochemicals as more people turn to renewable fuel sources. It’s going to take a lot more than a growing number of conscientious citizens refusing straws at restaurant takeout windows or tossing their empty detergent jugs in the recycling bin to turn the tide. The onus needs to be turned back onto the ultimate polluters: the manufacturers, who have deep pockets and formidable legal teams. Holding them responsible for reducing production and cleaning things up is going to take an awful lot of political will.
Fortunately, public awareness of the enormity of the plastics problem is growing. And much of that consciousness-raising can be credited to a small-but-feisty not-for-profit organization called Beyond Plastics, whose home base is at Bennington College in Vermont. A visit to its website at beyondplastics.org yields a remarkable amount of useful information — not only about the dangers of petrochemicals in the environment but also practical strategies for how to organize one’s own life, business, community, county and state to make real change. A proprietor of a small dry-cleaning shop can find out here how to provide services without plastics, for example.
Mohonk Consultations’ Distinguished Achievement Award
Beyond Plastics was founded in 2019 by Judith Enck, who has been announced as the recipient of the 2023 Mohonk Consultations’ Distinguished Achievement Award, “in recognition of her groundbreaking efforts to bring attention to the plastic pollution crisis.” The award ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 11 in the outdoor pavilion at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz.
Since the think tank known as Mohonk Consultations (MC) was founded in 1980, the Mohonk Mountain House has played host to many a conference of experts on such topics as peacebuilding, sustainable energy, preserving land and watersheds, supporting farmworkers and resettling refugees. During the COVID pandemic, many of these presentations were done virtually, including a screening of Deia Schlosberg’s documentary The Story of Plastic, followed up by a panel discussion led by Enck (hudsonvalleyone.com/2021/01/29/mohonk-consultations-hosts-plastic-waste-crisis-talk). Each year, MC confers a prestigious honor on a local organization or individual who has “shown an extraordinary level of commitment in protecting the environment and in making the Hudson Valley more habitable, healthy and participatory,” and this year is spotlighting the urgency of the plastics crisis by making Enck its Distinguished Achievement honoree.
A nationally recognized environmental policy expert
A Greene County native who now lives in Rensselaer, Enck attended the College of St. Rose in Albany, with the original intent of becoming a social worker. But then she got involved in her campus chapter of the New York Public Research Group (NYPIRG). “That was the spark,” she says. “I became a legislative intern and got assigned to the Bottle Bill.”
That groundbreaking bottle deposit law didn’t pass in the New York State Legislature while Enck was still an undergraduate, but she remained undaunted, and passionate about the topic. “After all, my parents did name me after St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes,” she says with a laugh. Following her graduation, she took a position as an office manager for an organization called the Environmental Planning Lobby (which later changed its name to Environmental Advocates) and continued working on the Bottle Bill. “We led a coalition of groups from across the state. Nobody thought that it would pass.” But in 1982, the campaign finally succeeded.
From there, Enck went on to work as deputy secretary for the environment in the New York Governor’s Office and succeeded in having bottle deposits extended to bottled water. “That was my entry into a whole career of working for the environment,” she says. Her highest-profile position was as the Region 2 administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), overseeing environmental protections in New York, New Jersey, eight Indian Nations, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, managing a staff of 800 and a $700M budget, for the duration of the Obama administration.
“It was hard work, but very fulfilling,” she says of her time at the EPA. “I worked on getting PCBs out of the Hudson River, and also out of schools.” The latter issue required replacement of lighting fixtures with more environmentally friendly ones, including those in the New York City public school system – a “massive initiative,” she says. Cleaning up Superfund sites, including the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, also kept the regional EPA office busy during those years. “We were dealing with a century of pollution, but that effort represented EPA at its finest: very methodical.”
One crisis that drew considerable attention toward the end of that period was the discovery of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in the public drinking water system in the Town of Hoosick Falls. “That situation really put the ‘forever chemical’ issue on the map nationally,” Enck notes. She carried that concern over into her career following her replacement at EPA by a Trump administration appointee. She became a visiting scholar at Pace Law School, and then Bennington College faculty with whom she’d worked on the PFOA issue offered her a teaching position there. “Environmentalists find me,” she says.
Enck’s seven-week class on plastics pollution became an instant hit with both Bennington College students and outsiders wanting to audit the course, inspiring the formation of a new environmental organization with a broader reach. “We wanted to start an advocacy project to reduce plastics. Bennington instantly said yes to housing it,” she explains.
Now a nationally recognized environmental policy expert, Enck has a wealth of terrifying information on plastics pollution at her fingertips, ready to introduce into conversation. “For every three pounds of fish in the ocean, there’s going to be one pound of plastic,” she says. “The production of plastics is expected to double over the next 20 years. It’s only through public action that we’ll change that.”
To put the available data to effective use, Beyond Plastics has quickly moved beyond education to advocacy, offering support to the organization of local chapters – most often headed up by women, she notes. Her staff of ten recently published a “major report” on the relationship between plastics manufacture and climate change, titled Plastics is the New Coal. Her own work these days ranges from testifying last fall at “the first-ever Senate hearing on plastics” to teaching to fundraising. Listeners to the Roundtable public affairs program on WAMC-FM also know that Enck is a regular participant in the discussions of breaking news on Friday mornings.
If Planet Earth can be saved from the worst excesses of human behavior, it’ll be on account of the commitment of people like Judith Enck. The public is invited to join in honoring her at Mohonk Mountain House on Sunday, June 11 from 4 to 7 p.m. Guest speakers helping to celebrate Enck’s achievements will include Ramón Cruz, current president of the Sierra Club; Ulster County executive Jen Metzger; and Megan Wolff, who started New Paltz chapter of Beyond Plastics and is now the organization’s policy director.
Attendees will also enjoy a buffet dinner buffet as well as musical entertainment from Betty and the Baby Boomers. Tickets cost $50 for the general public, $35 for students and must be purchased in advance. Learn more and reserve your tickets at mohonk-consultations.org/news/save-the-date-distinguished-achievement-award-ceremony-to-honor-judith-enck-on-june-11.
Join the family! 
