Category: Event

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“Chemical Recycling” of Plastic: A Burning Issue

Tuesday, June 13 at 6:00pm

As public concern grows about the plastic waste crisis, the petrochemical and plastic industries are promoting a suite of environmentally troublesome technologies that they misleadingly call “chemical recycling” (also known as “advanced recycling”) as a solution to the crisis.  Chemical recycling isn’t really recycling at all.  This supposed cutting-edge technology most often involves turning plastic into fuel. Here in Tucson, the Environmental and General Services Department has solicited seven project ideas for turning plastic or mixed waste into gaseous and/or liquid fuels that will be burned, using pyrolysis and gasification systems. The Department is also studying two proposals that would turn discarded plastics into chemical feedstocks to make new plastic.

Chemical recycling represents a dangerous false solution to the plastic epidemic. These high-heat systems most often use plastic materials to generate a limited amount of fuel in a one-time process, destroying them rather than giving them another material use. These processes, which are energy-intensive, generate greenhouse gases and toxic fumes. Some also produce hazardous waste. Chemical recycling will not solve the plastic waste crisis. What is needed instead are policies that reduce plastic production and waste, particularly single-use packaging.

Join us at our June 13 monthly meeting to learn about the health and environmental hazards of chemical recycling. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Veena Singla, Senior Scientist, People & Communities Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Time for Q&A will follow her presentation.

Dr. Singla, who is also an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University, oversees a program that addresses health disparities linked to harmful environmental exposures. Her research investigates how toxic chemicals and pollution related to systems of materials use, production, and disposal threaten the health of impacted communities.

Dr. Singla currently serves on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, the Board of Directors for Clean Production Action, and as associate director for the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice Program. 

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Air Quality in Pima County

One of the key foundational issues for living in a healthy environment is ensuring that we can breathe clean air. We know that this is far from true for many places and communities around the world. But what about right here in Pima County? Do we enjoy the clean air we all desire? Or are there days when we experience poor air, and are there parts of the county that experience a risky degree of pollution? How can we all help to ensure our local air quality is the best it can be?
 
Join us for an in-depth look at “Air Quality in Pima County” at our next monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 9, at 6:00 pm on Zoom. We’re pleased that our presenter for this topic will be Natalie Shepp, MPH, Senior Program Manager for Outreach & Education at Pima County Department of Environmental Quality. She’ll focus on local air quality issues, and review local sources, health effects, and solutions to air pollution. Time for Q&A will follow her presentation.
 
And to prepare for what you’ll be hearing from Natalie, you can take PDEQ’s Clean Air Challenge, hosted on their website throughout the month of May <#ThisIsCleanAir Challenge>. For the Challenge, you’ll take a quiz to test your knowledge about air quality and how your habits protect the air we breathe. Quiz takers also earn a chance at winning a prize.
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Young Advocates for Sustainability

Tuesday, April 11
6:00-7:30 pm

Watch the meeting: https://youtu.be/mmtBG7APSOI

Join us to hear a panel of young activists (teens to 20’s) who are working for a sustainable future. Panelists will share their key engagements in the community, other issues that are on their minds, and what they wish others would do to assure a brighter future. After they answer a few prepared questions, the floor will open to the audience. Bring your questions!
 
Panelists are Rocky Baier, recent UA grad, co-founder of Tucson’s Repair Cafe; Ali Soland, member of Youth for Blue Skies, a collaborative program of the Ironwood Tree Experience; Adriana Bachmann, Ambassadors of Sustainability, climate communicator; and Garrett Weaver, member of Tucson Climate Coalition.

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Sustainability in the Statehouse

Tuesday, March 14 @ 6:00

https://youtu.be/btXUQ4-kwq0

What’s happening in our state Legislature to bills that impact environment, natural resources, and related issues? Join us at our next monthly meeting for answers to that question.

Our speaker will be State Senator Priya Sundareshan, who will give an overview of legislative activity (or lack of activity) on issues such as sustainability, environment, clean air, water, environmental justice, electrifying transportation options, and emissions reduction in the fight to control the climate crisis.

Senator Sundareshan represents Legislative District 18 and is also the Director of the Natural Resource Use and Management Clinic, James E Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. It will be valuable to hear the perspective of an environmental lawyer on the way our legislature is addressing issues of importance to our organization – and to the future of our state.

Speaker Bio: Priya Sundareshan was elected to the Arizona Senate in 2023 to represent LD 18 and currently sits on the Elections, Government, and Natural Resources/Energy/Water Committees. Born and raised in LD18, Priya loves Tucson and the opportunities she had for an excellent public education and exploring the outdoors. She teaches natural resources law at the University of Arizona, and previously advocated for sustainable resource management with the Environmental Defense Fund. As a voting rights advocate, Priya has led voter protection efforts and engagement on redistricting within the Arizona Democratic Party. Having studied engineering at MIT and law and natural resource economics at UA, she knows we need more science-based decision-making in politics, especially when it comes to preserving our

beautiful state for future generations. As a mother of two small children, Priya wants her children and all children to inherit a sustainable world and sustainable Arizona.

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Love and Protect
Our Beautiful Sonoran Desert

This month we are featuring the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, an important local organization advocating for and working to preserve our natural environment and biodiversity. But why does the Sonoran Desert need protection, and what is this Coalition doing to protect it?

Join us to get the answers to those and many other questions at our Monthly Meeting, 6:00 pm on Tuesday, February 14 — Valentine’s Day, the perfect time to express your love for our beautiful Sonoran Desert! 
 
Our speaker will be Carolyn Campbell, Executive Director of the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, who will share with us her passion for the Sonoran Desert. Carolyn will give us an overview of the important work of the Coalition, including its role in developing Pima County’s award-winning Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. She’ll review other notable successes and key challenges, and she’ll suggest some ways in which we can get involved. 

Carolyn Campbell, Executive Director, helped found the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection in 1998, responding to a need for a unified voice to advocate for the implementation of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Over the last 20 years, under her leadership, the Coalition has become the lead environmental advocate and facilitator on Sonoran Desert conservation planning.

After graduating from Arizona State University in 1982 with a B.S. in Political Science, Carolyn worked as a Congressional Aide to Representative Morris K. Udall in his Phoenix office from 1984-1990. She was the founder and State Chair of the Arizona Green Party from 1990-1998, and from 1994-1997 she worked as Chief Council Aide for Tucson City Councilmember Molly McKasson. Over the years, she has served on many local committees and boards of local organizations, and has received numerous local and regional awards.
 
Throughout her time calling Tucson home, she has been, in her own words,  â€śa passionate voice for Sonoran Desert land and wildlife conservation.”

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Make your voice heard about our water future

Image of the one water process, which includes groundwater, surface water, reclaimed water, and stormwater.
Tucson is working on the One Water 2100 Master Plan.

The City of Tucson is working on the One Water 2100 Master Plan to determine how Tucson will manage water resources for the next 80 years.

Your input on the plan is needed! The One Water 2100 Survey will be open through January 31, 2023 to get feedback from the community.

Sustainable Tucson prepared an info sheet to provide some background on the options in the survey. You can access the info sheet here and then use the link in the info sheet to take the survey.

Be part of our water future!

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Event

Take Heart, Take Part, Take Action

How Small Acts and Groups Can Create Big Change
An evening of stories and conversation
With Trathen Heckman, founder and executive director, Daily Acts

In getting overwhelmed and disheartened, we lose sight of the enriching, transformative impact we each can have. Come spend an hour with Trathen Heckman, author of the just-released book, Take Heart, Take Action, as he shares:

  • Tools and practices to find and live your inspiration and create a personal compass
  • How small groups can become catalysts for wide-scale change

Trathen Heckman is the founder and Director of Daily Acts Organization. He serves on the Board of Transition U.S. and the California Water Efficiency Partnership and is an Advisory Board member of the Norcal Community Resilience Network. Trathen helps people and groups reclaim the power of their actions to regenerate self, nature, and community. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed, where he grows food, medicine, and wonder while working to compost apathy and lack.

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Exploring Climate Change Using
“The Thing from the Future”

Tuesday, December 13, 6:00 pm

There are many tools that can help us think about the world we want to see. One such tool is “The Thing from the Future,” a game designed by the Situation Lab. The designers describe it this way: “The Thing from The Future is an award-winning imagination game that challenges players to collaboratively and competitively describe objects from a range of alternative futures.” Our presenter, Nic Richmond, the Chief Strategy Officer for Pima Community College and a certified foresight practitioner, has extended the game to include climate action and sustainability topics, creating a collaborative activity that generates thoughtful discussion and true creativity.

Within the game, participants will be presented with a scenario comprised of:

  • A type of future (e.g., a future resulting from ongoing steady progress or a future impacted by a profound historical change)
  • The climate setting (e.g., the temperature increase was successfully limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius or we cross a climate change tipping point)
  • The context or location where the future object may be found
  • The type of object that is the focus of the round — a specific artifact that reveals something about how the future is different from today 
  • The mood that a person may feel while using the object

After the presenter shares an introduction to futures work and presents an example of a possible future object, participants will divide into teams (via break-out rooms) and be assigned a set of cards. They will be charged with developing the specifics of the object and what it means in the specified climate future. After 10 minutes of discussion, each team will present their object and a winner will be selected for the round. We’ll play several rounds, to explore a range of possible futures.

Nic Richmond, Ph.D., is a geophysicist, data scientist, and education leader. Nic has earned a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in geophysics from institutions in the United Kingdom and gained over 25 years of research experience. Her research interests include the analysis and interpretation of orbital magnetometer data of the Moon and Mars, the application of quantum mechanics and solid-state physics to deep Earth materials, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning methods in higher education. Since 2008, she has worked full time in higher education research, and she currently leads the Strategy, Analytics, and Research team at Pima Community College, where she serves as Chief Strategy Officer. In that role, she is responsible for the College’s sustainability program, and she led the development of the College’s first Climate Action and Sustainability Plan.
 

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Low Water/Low Labor Hot Wet Composting in the Desert

Join us Tuesday, November 8 at 6:00 PM, as we welcome our speaker, Joy Holdread, a local artist who specializes in desert

composting and water conservation. Joy will share techniques andtips on how to compost easily in the desert with a fewmodifications to traditional methods and commercial bins, to accommodate the desert’s dryness as well as conserve water. Turn your yard, kitchen, and office waste into great growing soil without using extra potable water.

Our speaker: Joy L. Holdread grew up in a small town in Western Arizona next to an Indian reservation. Much of her art is inspired from visual memories of this unspoiled area which she explored during long hikes and family cookouts with a border collie, prospectors, and rock hounds. Joy received an A.F.A. degree from Arizona Western College, then studied fine and commercial art at Pima Community College and the University of Arizona. She lives in Tucson, where her activities have included coordinating art exhibits, teaching a business class for visual artists, artist in the schools, workshops, and private consultations. Currently Joy focuses her energies on sustainable projects in the desert, specializing in desert composting techniques and water conservation.

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Tackling Food Waste at the City Level

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/bca0rCtOpO4

Join us on Tuesday, October 11 at 6:00pm, as we welcome our speaker, Nina Sevilla, from National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She will share the findings of NRDC’s ground-breaking report, “Wasted: How America is Losing up to 40 Percent of its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill” and will look at how we can address this problem at the city and community level. Nina will share examples of how other cities across the U.S. are taking the lead to reduce food waste and suggest what can be done in Tucson.
 
Food, whether purchased from a local farmer’s market, a giant supermarket chain, or a corner bodega, whether eaten at a curbside truck or a 3-star restaurant, is something most Americans take for granted. Little consideration is given to where the food comes from, the circumstances under which it is grown, what is involved in processing it and getting it to market, or what the substantial environmental impacts are at each and every step of the way.
 
Across the U.S., as many of us enjoy the bountiful supply, it is estimated that some 40 million Americans are food insecure—that is lacking access to adequate and nutritious food. At the same time, over one third or approximately 35% of the food produced in the U.S. goes unsold or uneaten, wasting the resources used to produce it and creating a myriad of environmental impacts.
 
In particular, food loss and waste undeniably exacerbates climate change. In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that annual U.S. food loss and waste embodied 170 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. For perspective, that is equal to the annual emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants. And, this estimate does not take into consider the fact that food rotting in landfills further emits greenhouse gases in the form of climate-damaging methane.
 
By decreasing food waste, we can lessen the need for new food production; reduce projected deforestation, biodiversity loss, water pollution, and scarcity; and lower greenhouse gases. Additionally, reducing food waste can go a long way in eliminating or reducing food insecurity.
 
As we’ll learn from our speaker, legislatures in cities and states throughout the U.S. have implemented laws that address this critical issue of food loss and waste. Alongside these governmental initiatives, nationally-recognized non-profits like the NRDC and ReFED and numerous community-based organizations are tackling the issue in innovative ways that can serve as models for a more comprehensive national approach.

Nina Sevilla works to ensure we have a sustainable, healthy, and equitable food system for all. She helps lead NRDC’s federal policy advocacy and facilitates learnings across cities by sharing successes and lessons learned from NRDC’s Food Matters project to a network of partners across the nation. She also works with those partners to run a consumer education campaign, Save The Food, to reduce household food waste. Prior to joining NRDC, Nina worked to increase food access through child nutrition programs at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona in Tucson. She holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Bates College and is based in NRDC’s San Francisco office.