About Lydia McMullen-Laird
Lydia McMullen-Laird is the co-founder and deputy director of the Ann Arbor-based Zerowaste.org. Her brother, Samuel McMullen, is the organization's executive director.
Resources
Transcription
Rebekah Warren: This is 89.1 WEMU. Every day, the choices we make in our homes and communities connect to much bigger environmental stories. Today, we're exploring one of those connections through Plastic Free July, a global movement encouraging people to reduce their reliance on single-use plastics. But what does that look like right here in Washtenaw County? And can local actions really make a difference in a problem that spans the globe? I'm Rebekah Warren, and this is Issues of the Environment. It's my honor to join a program that has spent more than three decades helping our community better understand the environmental issues that shape our lives. My guest today is Lydia McMullen-Laird, co-founder of ZeroWaste.org and one of the leaders behind this year's Plastic Free July efforts in the Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor area. Lydia, welcome!
Lydia McMullen-Laird: Thank you so much for having me!
Rebekah Warren: Lydia, when many people think about plastic pollution, they picture something happening somewhere else: an ocean gyre in the Pacific or a trash washing up on a distant shoreline. But some of the impacts are much closer to home. In fact, research has found that the Huron River carries one of the highest concentrations of microplastics among rivers flowing into the Great Lakes. Help us understand what that means and why Washtenaw residents should care.
Lydia McMullen-Laird: Yeah, absolutely! I think the issue of plastic itself is so overwhelming. When you see the ocean gyre or you see those pictures with just like pounds and pounds of plastic piled up, it can feel like you almost want to shut down. But I think the good thing about the fact that it's actually everybody's life. Like, if you look around your home or just where you are, the phone you're holding is probably made of plastic, books are coated in plastic sometimes, everything you eat out of. And so, the fact that it's so in everybody's life means you also have a lot of control over it. And so, I think rather than feeling overwhelmed by the fact that it all around you, even if you live in Washtenaw County, you can flip that and feel like, "Okay. So, because it's in my life too, I have a little bit more control over that." But, yeah, absolutely. The Huron River Watershed is one of the most polluted waterways. And so, it's really important locally to also focus on this issue and not just think about, "Okay. Well, we're going to let big companies take care of that. It's their fault," or we're going to focus on the global plastics treaty, local action is really important, too.
Rebekah Warren: You've mentioned a couple of the primary sources, but what other primary sources are there of these microplastics, and how do they end up making their way into our local waterways?
Lydia McMullen-Laird: I mean, packaging is a really huge one, like food packaging, that there's just plastic everywhere, but there's also a lot of kind of surprising sources of microplastics that I didn't know about until I really started to focus on this issue. For example, the bottom of your shoes. Think about like when you're walking around, there's constantly just little tiny bits of plastic leaching. Car tires are constantly leaching little microplastics. So, really just like anything that's plastic or most things that are plastic, especially if they're kind of a softer material, are often just slowly leaching microplastics everywhere that you use those materials.
Rebekah Warren: Lydia, when we think of the pollution problem with plastics, I think many of us think of recycling as the solution. Yet, globally, we know that only about 9% of plastic is actually recycled. At the same time, we know items like plastic bags and other flexible plastics can wreak havoc on recycling equipment. What does this tell us about the limit of recycling and why your organization focuses so heavily on reducing waste before it enters the system?
Lydia McMullen-Laird: Yeah, absolutely! I mean, it's unfortunate, but plastic is just very hard to recycle. And it's a complicated material that has so many different outcomes. If you think about there's like the flexible plastic bag, but then you also have really hard plastics and just how different it is across the spectrum makes it really hard to deal with at the end of life. It's also very, very cheap to produce, and that makes it harder to recycle because then there's not really economic incentive for it. And the other thing I just want the listeners to think about too, is even if you're recycling it, part of it is just your own life and your own exposure. So, there's a lot of microplastics in everybody's body. It's been found in a baby's first poop. It's going to found in the human heart. It's being found in the brain. Just having it around you is a toxic exposure. And I don't really want to scare people. You know, it's not like you're going to have some really catastrophic outcome if you have plastic around you. But there is a really good health case for decreasing it in your own life, and that's something that recycling just doesn't really take care of. And then, there's also the climate picture, right? So, if we're recycling, that really takes a lot of energy still, and a lot of it doesn't make it through that process. And so, we're still using a lot of energy and contributing to the climate crisis. Rather than if you try to avoid it, that can really help a lot more.
Rebekah Warren: We're talking about Plastic Free July and efforts to reduce plastic waste here in Washtenaw County and beyond. I'm Rebekah Warren, and my guest today is Lydia McMullen-Laird, co-founder of ZeroWaste.org, on 89.1 WEMU's Issues of the Environment. Well, clearly, recycling isn't enough on its own, so should we be asking ourselves is the most important question not "How do I reuse or responsibly dispose of this item, but do I really need to buy it in the first place?" And I feel like you've been on a personal journey in this space. What can you share with the listeners about this?
Lydia McMullen-Laird: So, I've been living the zero waste lifestyle along with my brother since 2015. And at the 10-year mark, I was ready for a new challenge, and actually reducing plastic is even harder than reducing your waste overall. But it's kind of an exciting challenge because it touches every facet of your life. So, I'm on a 10-year journey to just try to reduce plastic as much as I can in my entire life and in all the things. So, think clothing, cosmetics, shopping, your kitchen, your household. And the reason I'm giving myself 10 years is because it really truly just isn't everything, and it takes some time to research the alternatives, to implement them, and I want to feel like it's a fun exciting journey of discovery, rather than something really stressful. So, I think for anybody who's kind of excited to try that, I would really encourage you to start wherever you are. So, rather than getting overwhelmed and thinking, "Oh my gosh! When I look around my house, there's just plastic everywhere," I think it's good to just pick something that feels doable for you. So, if you're just starting out, a couple of the first swaps that I made were making sure I have my reusable coffee cup with me. And a lot of those things will depend on habits, right? Like, most of us already know that that's something that's great to do, but we might kind of forget just because it's not in our daily habits. So, you can use little memory tricks, like you can attach your keys to your water bottle or your coffee cup, and then you won't forget them, or if you're feeling a little bit more ambitious or you're already kind of doing this these basic things, you can focus on not buying new plastics. So, anything that's plastic that you need to buy, maybe try to buy it used, right? Because the production of new plastic is really what's contributing so much to the climate crisis, and, actually, that production is set to double by 2060, which is kind of a scary J-curve if you think about it. But at the same time, some reporting by Grist has shown that if we all collectively stop purchasing it and really push hard, the production could actually go down by 85% in that same time period.
Rebekah Warren: Thank you, Lydia, for giving us some practical and achievable places to start as we look at our own use of single-use plastics. Tell us a little bit about some of the partnerships that you've built here in the Washtenaw and Ypsilanti area that help make these solutions accessible and community-based to our students, our working families, and everyday residents around the county.
Lydia McMullen-Laird: Yeah, absolutely! So, we have a lot of different community partners, especially with businesses who support these kinds of things. So, BYOC Co. in Washtenaw County sells cosmetics that are refillable, so you don't have to keep getting the single-use plastic. We work a lot with Kiwanis, and they have a thrift sale where you can get a lot of things used, again, not contributing to the purchase of new plastics. And then, one thing that we're developing is a Plastic Free July badge that you can earn by making different plastic-free swaps. So, some of those will be things that you can do in the community, and some of them will just be different lifestyle changes that you could make. And we have a lot of those swaps available on our website, zerowaste.org, if you want to learn more. But really, we could not do the work that we do in engaging people and educating people if people in Washtenaw County didn't build the infrastructure in terms of the community partners. So, if we're telling people like, "Hey, you should take your coffee to the coffee shop," but then, the coffee shop says, "We don't do that. We don't use those. We don't let you use your own cup," then it wouldn't really matter. So, we really depend on a lot of community partners to engage with that as well. And Washtenaw County is really great for that. There's so many people working on this issue, so it's actually one of the easiest places that I've ever been to try to reduce your plastic because the community is so behind it. So, there's lots of different events like clothing swaps. We're working on a zero waste fall festival coming up this fall with Kiwanis and a lot of partners. So, it's just great because there's a lot of people who care about this issue.
Rebekah Warren: Lydia, thank you so much for the conversation today and for sharing your work with us! That was Lydia McMullen-Laird, co-founder of ZeroWaste.org and our guest on Issues of the Environment. Today's conversation reminds us that environmental challenges often seem global and overwhelming, yet they frequently show up in places we know well: in our shopping carts, our recycling bins, and even in the waters of the Huron River. Understanding these local connections can be the first step toward meaningful action. For more information on today's conversation and resources related to Plastic Free July, visit our website at WEMU.org. Issues of the Environment is produced in partnership with the Office of the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner, and you hear it here every Wednesday. I'm Rebekah Warren, and this is your community NPR station, 891 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on X (Twitter)
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
