Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Judie)

Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Judie)

Author: Anja Krieger September 12, 2025 Duration: 34:06
In this episode, we’re going to head out to the beach for the 40th International Coastal Cleanup Day. It’s a huge event which has been taking place each third Saturday of September for four decades now. Each year that day, hundreds of thousands of people swarm to the shorelines and collect and remove the trash they find. But beyond just cleaning up, International Coastal Cleanup Day is an important part of the science and politics of plastics. But how did it all begin? In the next two episodes, you’ll get to hear the little-known stories of the women who started the beach cleanups in the 1980s. These early activists did not only mobilise citizens to put a global spotlight on plastic pollution. They were also the first to count and classify the trash, which produced invaluable data to better understand the growing environmental issue plastics posed. And right from the beginning, beach cleanups drew the interest of the plastics and packaging industries. We’ll explore this history in more detail with Elsa Devienne. Elsa is an assistant professor in US history at Northumbria University in the UK, and she’s the one who dug up this story. Find part two of the story here: https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/coastal-cleanup-linda Link to the 1984 video "Get the Drift and Bag it": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEesPuZxCes Elsa's paper: Making Plastics Count: Citizen Science Beach Cleanups and the Ocean Plastic Pollution Crisis (1980s–2020s) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/737351?journalCode=eh Contact her for a free copy: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/d/elsa-devienne/ This episode was supported by a British Academy Leverhulme Small Grant and co-produced by Elsa Devienne and Anja Krieger. All recordings with Judie by Elsa. Music is by Dorian Roy, and cover art by Maren von Stockhausen.

Anja Krieger hosts Plastisphere: A podcast on plastic pollution in the environment, a series that digs into the complex story of synthetic polymers. This isn't just a catalog of environmental damage, though that reality is confronted directly. Instead, the podcast carefully examines how these materials, foundational to contemporary life, now permeate every corner of the natural world and our own bodies. Anja guides listeners through a nuanced exploration, asking whether a sustainable coexistence is even possible. She doesn't provide easy answers but facilitates necessary conversations, bringing together researchers, activists, industry insiders, and communities on the front lines. Each episode is built on specific stories and scientific insights, moving from the deep ocean to human bloodstreams to policy halls. You'll hear about the chemistry of plastics, their journey as waste, and the cultural and economic systems that perpetuate their use. The strength of this podcast lies in its commitment to presenting a genuine spectrum of perspectives, avoiding simple blame in favor of understanding a truly global dilemma. It’s a thoughtful, sometimes surprising, and always human-centered look at one of the most defining material challenges of our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Plastisphere: A podcast on plastic pollution in the environment
Podcast Episodes
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Duration: 33:03
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