Award-winning author and journalist Susan Freinkel will give the virtual talk "How Did We Get Hooked on Plastic?" on Monday, April 14 at 2:30 p.m. It will be streamed in Foster Auditorium of Paterno Library and available on Zoom. The talk is free and open to the public.
"Until the mid-20th century, humans got along just fine without plastic," said Freinkel. "Today, we can't imagine life without it. It's now so utterly pervasive that it's hard to go a day, or even an hour, without coming into contact something plastic. From mountain tops to ocean depths, there's no place in the world untouched by plastic. In less than two generations, our material world has been utterly transformed."
In her talk, Freinkel will tell the story of that transformation, describing some of the key moments of discovery and innovation that helped make plastic the central - and defining - medium of our age and explores whether it's possible to break the plastic habit.
Susan Freinkel is the author of "Plastic: A Toxic Love Story," and "American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree," which won a 2008 National Outdoor Book Award. She writes often about science, health and the environment. Her work has appeared in a variety of national publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Discover, Smithsonian, The Nation, Health, Reader's Digest and other publications. She lives in San Francisco, where she's currently writing a Substack newsletter about Golden Gate Park.
Freinkel writes about the intersection of science, culture and the environment. Raised in Evanston, Illinois, she studied history at Wesleyan University and journalism at Columbia University.
