Plastic

Cedar is Senior Director of Community Programs at West Central Initiative, where she leads community initiatives and connects people and communities with resources that support sustainability and resilience.

She's organized and supported multiple community screenings of the Plastic People documentary, which led to the formation of a Beyond Plastics local chapter in West Central Minnesota.

Prior to joining West Central Initiative, Cedar worked at a county recycling facility for six years and became obsessed with waste reduction, specifically for plastics and food waste.

So let's begin.

It gets downcycled into an inferior product that cannot be recycled again.

And so it's like this delaying of landfilling, but we're not really solving it through recycling.

And really over time, it's also the health impacts that have, I would say, reignited my motivation to engage with this issue because I Plastics are connected to all kinds of challenges, especially related to reproductive health and development, cancer, inflammation.

Like there's just so much there and it's really lit a fire under me.

Now, today's episode starts with a question that stopped me cold when I first heard it.

What if the plastic crisis wasn't somewhere else? What if it was already here, already in our oceans, already on our most remote and sacred coastlines, and already in our bodies? Well, my guest today is Cal Glansnig.

He is 25 years old, a water polo athlete turned ocean advocate, a local counselor on Sydney's Sutherland Shire, a TEDx speaker, a filmmaker, a surfer, and someone who has spent the last 18 months crossing Australia asking the questions that most of us would honestly probably not want to be asking.

His new documentary, The Plastic Country, takes you from the beaches of Cronulla to East Arnhem Land, from Parliament House to supermarket aisles, from stormwater drains to landfills.

And at one point, he even tested his own urine for plastic chemicals.

And what he found out was actually shocking.

But here's the thing about Cal.

So, I'd love to know what first sparked your desire to protect the ocean and the environment.

Nice.

Fresh from living in Africa, homeschooled, Katie Heron enters public high school and infiltrates the elite clique, the Plastics.

As her revenge plot unfolds, she gradually transforms into the very bully she set out to defeat.

I guess, who's the other, the alt-goth girl? Oh, God, that's going to drive me crazy.

Thank you and good night.

Yeah! Turn it up! This one for the people buried under lies For the children under bomb For the workers getting robbed For everybody sick of the corruption I see politicians smile while the whole world's burning Bodies in the rubble while the profit wheels turning Every demolition got a billionaire sponsor Different colored ties but the answer gets darker I don't want your wars, I don't want your hate I don't want another kid sent overseas by the state Don't tell me freedom comes attached to a drone strike Don't tell me justice when the cameras catch the wrong fight Trump on a stage selling fear by the truckload Turning up division while the truth gets bulldozed GOP talking family while they slash food and buy Got the rich in the penthouse and the poor barely survive I'm tired of corruption wearing suits and grins Tired of watching corporations always seem to win Tired of hearing thoughts and prayers after every disaster While the same damn people keep serving their masters No kings, no masters No war profiteers, no fascists No genocide, no racism No corruption, no hatred Raise your voice, raise your fist The people ain't forgetting this We want peace, we want truth And we're coming for accountability I stand against genocide wherever it appears Against the bombs, the blood shed, the terror and the fear Against every government that treats a life like a number Against every leader making nations tear asunder Against feminism when it's used to justify oppression Against extremists spreading death as a lesson Against terrorists murdering people in the streets Against fanatics who think violence equals peace Against racism, every color, every creed Against the poison put in deep by hand and greed They want us fighting over bread and skin tone While the billionaires collect another stack of gold Look around, air's poison, forests dying Educators cashing checks while the scientists are crying Plastic in the oceans, smoke in the sky And they're still asking why the temperatures rise No kings, no masters No war profiteers, no fascists No genocide, no racism No corruption, no hatred Raise your voice, raise your fist The people ain't forgetting this We want peace, we want truth And we're coming for accountability I don't care what party's on the screen tonight If they're feeding corruption, then I'm ready to fight Not with bullets, not with bombs, not with fear But with truth so loud, everybody gotta hear Media distractions, culture war games Keeping everybody angry while they changing the names Same corporations, same donations Same revolving door political operations They divide the neighborhoods, the cities, the states Then they act surprised when the public's full of rage But the people are waking up, the script's getting old And the cracks in the empire are beginning to show No more excuses, no more lies No more leaders hiding crimes behind patriotic cries No more hatred wrapped in red, white, and blue Government should answer to the people, not rule For every child caught beneath the fire For every worker squeezed by greed's desire For every victim of a racist scheme For every soul crushed by a broken dream We're still here, still loud Still standing, still proud No kings, no masters No tyrants, no profits No genocide, no racism No corruption, no racism No terrorists, no hatred No poison in the seas No government serving power While they're crushing human needs Raise your voice, raise your fist The people won't stay silent Peace, justice, truth, and freedom It's a revolution we're igniting The people are not your property The truth is not your enemy The earth is not your landfill And human life is not expendable No war, no hate No corruption, that's the message

And also there's something a little bit of the, not necessarily Malcolm Hulke, but somewhere in that area about Chris Chibnall's stuff where he likes to deal with issues.

Praxeus, the Plastics, for a start, but there are many other examples of that.

And this is f- the first time ...

I mean, it's only his second story in the series.

This is episode 56. cookie that used to be a bottle.

On August 24th, 2026, at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago, a graduate researcher named Sundaya Jasekara stood up and told a roomful of chemists that her lab had taken supermarket PET bottles, the clear plastic of soda in spring water, mixed them with discarded corn stalks and leaves, cracked that mess apart with water, heat, pressure, and oxygen, fed the pieces to a genetically programmed yeast, and 3D printed the results into cookies they called microbytes.

Her advisor, Associate Professor Lahiru Jayakoti at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, has a line I have not been able to shake.

We were trying to develop technologies for plastic upcycling to make more valuable products.

We thought, why not focus on making food? Because plastic is carbon and food is carbon.

That sentence is either the most hopeful thing a microbiologist can say in 2026 or the most haunted, possibly both.

That's our kind of story.

That is not what happened.

They're definitely in your balls, Mr.

Plastic.

How much plastic do I use? I don't know.

You eat out of plastic stuff all the time.

This episode features special reporting by former TWS Policy Fellow, Kaylin Zipp.

This conversation with Kevin O'Brien on marine debris cleanup in Hawaii is one part of her new story, Plastic Prisoners, out now.

This is the first edition of our new digital member exclusive stories.

You can read the full story in your member portal on wildlife.org or find the link in the show notes under this episode.