Judith just published The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late.

I've read a lot about plastic and hosted many authors. I won't lie. Before starting the book, I thought I should read it because I knew her, but didn't expect much.

Instead, I learned a lot new. I found it engaging and compelling. I recommend it.

Yes, you'll learn things that are sobering, but you'd rather know than not know, especially things that affect your health and safety and your family's. It also guides you to how to respond, personally, socially, and politically. Judith cares and has experience.

Start by listening to our conversation. Then read the book.

• The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late
• WEBINAR with co-authors Judith Enck, Adam Mahoney, and Melissa Valliant, January 28, 2026

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Since Silvia teaches as a business school, I'll address a leadership aspect of our interaction. I skimped on a leadership step, so we did an episode 1.5, which is my lingo for redoing episode 1 when the person wasn't able to fulfill his or her commitment. That's my responsibility as leader of the interaction.

Silvia and I had a wonderful first conversation that led to a commitment that sounded like she'd enjoy it and doable, but in the end wasn't quite. Even if a quick hike north of the city would be enjoyable, catching a Metro-North train from Columbia University isn't that convenient and her schedule may not have bee as flexible as she suspected in our first conversation.

For those listening to these conversations to learn the Spodek Method, in our first conversation I didn't check with her how practical the commitment was given her constraints. As the leader of the interaction, I should have asked ahead to imagine her schedule, the logistics of catching the train, and so on. The key measure the first time someone acts on their intrinsic motivation isn't how big it is. It's if they person does it.

When someone acts on intrinsic motivation, they'll find it rewarding. If they feel reward, they'll want to do it again and the next time will be bigger, especially if they've always considered acting on sustainability a sacrifice or something that has to be big or any of the other myths people propagate. Sadly, even ardent environmentalists lead people to think of acting more sustainably as something they won't like or won't find rewarding when they use tactics like trying to convince, cajole, coerce, or seek compliance.

In this double episode we hear how she did something more practical. At the end, note that she's open to doing more.

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How often does something break that you know could be fixed, but you don't know how and there are no places to fix it? I remember repair stores all over the place, but the field doesn't exist any more. We all know about planned obsolescence and how products are designed to break. Now we feel we have to throw things away and replace them (after avoiding buying things when possible, which is far more than most of us practice).

Enter Sandra Goldmark, as a member of a growing movement to fix things and make things fixable. She's also an Ivy League professor at Barnard and the Columbia Climate School, so, no, professors don't have to be out of touch.

I met Sandra before the pandemic, at a shop she set up down by the South Street Seaport to repair things. Besides her own book Fixation, she was mentioned in a book (The Repair Revolution) in my sustainability leadership workshop alumni book club.

Lest you think people have to be born fixers or educated as engineers, a preconception that I find still holds me back, she shares her background not growing up with those things. On the contrary, she found she enjoyed it and found community.

Listen for a basic human approach to fixing things and changing culture.

• Sandra's home page
• Her book, Fixation
• Her page at Barnard

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I found Dr. Trasande quoted in a Washington Post article The health risks from plastics almost nobody knows about: Phthalates, chemicals found in plastics, are linked to an array of problems, especially in pregnancy. He said, "Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are one of the biggest global health threats of our time ... And 2 percent of us know about it---but 99 percent of us are affected by it.”

The article said that he said that "at the population level, scientists can see telltale signs that those chemicals are undermining human health, adding to growing male infertility or growing cases of ADHD." This outcome suggests a violation of this nation being founded on protecting life, liberty, and property, and the consent of the governed. I also found from this video, Food Contaminants and Additives, that he reported his results thoroughly, taking care not to venture outside his research.

I had to talk to him.

We talked about his research, what brought him to a new field, now burgeoning, of learning about chemicals that disrupt our endocrine systems---that is, they mess with our hormones. You'll hear that he didn't intend to go into it. It was (tragically) growing in importance since our hormone systems are becoming increasingly disrupted, as are those of many species.

I should be more accurate. They aren't passively being disrupted. Consumers are paying companies to produce chemicals that do it.

It sounds slimy and scary. I'd rather it didn't happen, but since it does, I'd rather know than not know. I think you would too.

• Dr. Trasande's NYU faculty page

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Reading Saabira's New York Times piece Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us told me she saw more about plastic and its effect on our culture than most. A quote from it: "The social costs of our addiction to disposable plastics are more subtle but significant. Cooking skills have declined. Sit-down family meals are less common. Fast fashion, enabled by synthetic plastic fibers, is encouraging compulsive consumption and waste."

Her tenure at the Wall Street Journal told me she would communicate it effectively, pulling no punches. As much as I prefer not to link to social media, this video review by Chris van Tulleken, bestselling author of Ultra-Processed People, is about as positive a review as I've seen, all the more since he clarifies that he doesn't know her.

So I invited her to talk about her book Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic. It launches today (October 7) in the US, so I've only finished the beginning, but it delivers. In our conversation, she describes what to expect when you read it, plus her back story driving her to write it.

Many reviews describe her humor. You'll hear that I held back from asking her about how she worked humor into the topic, since she's not a comedian so I wouldn't expect to perform unprepared, but no worry, she made me laugh unprompted and shared more humor from the book. Obviously it's a serious topic, and Saabira's work shows how much more serious than you probably thought, but being depressed doesn't help solve it.

• Saabira's home page
• Her New York Times piece that brought me to her: Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us
• Her book page for Consumed
• The video review we mention by Chris van Tulleken, bestselling author of Ultra-Processed People

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Zach and I got so into our first conversation that we had to take a second one to get to the Spodek Method.

Listen for yourself, but I hear Zach working with three motivations:

His surfer, outdoors self wants to conserve, protect, and enjoy nature and enable others to do the same by experiencing it.

His CEO self wants to deliver what his customers want, despite what they want including polluting and depleting---that is, hurting people and wildlife---beyond what nearly anyone who ever lived has. They don't know it and his company's current message implies that they're helping, not hurting.

His leadership self wants to improve himself and his work, to resolve conflict, to explore his boundaries and his team's to see if they can change the world.

This situation exists in nearly everyone I know: we love humanity and nature, we live in a culture that rewards the destruction of each, and we want to help resolve that conflict. The difference with Zach is not that the stakes are higher. It's that he is willing to share this internal conflict publicly, not to hide it or act like it isn't there. Only by examining one's blind spots and vulnerabilities can one grow in the areas we care about most. Zach is out on the forefront.

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I met Zach at an event I spoke at sponsored by the Young Presidents Organization, whose members tend to be successful in business. The criteria to join require it. I knew the people would be friendly, but suspected they would pollute and deplete more than most without realizing it.

Zach plays a leadership role in the local chapter and was one of the organizers for this event so we interacted more. He was open and sincere about learning about my work and sustainability leadership. As you'll hear, he runs a business that pollutes and depletes---that is, hurts people and wildlife---a lot. Like nearly all businesses that do, it portrays itself as clean and helping people stay clean while doing things that pollute and deplete.

Not many people face their inner conflicts, let alone voice them publicly. I see no other way to resolve them. No one has solved the challenges Zach is choosing to face. I know they can be solved as does he, I suspect, but getting there will be hard. Restoring sustainability to his business, among the most polluting and depleting, will be hard, mostly people and cultural challenges, not technical or legislative.

I see Zach as a potential pioneer. Let's see if we can help him achieve what few others are trying and most are just covering up.

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Since our fourth recording, Dr. Bob and I spoke at length about what's driving me and keeping me going beyond where nearly anyone else does on sustainability leadership. We cover in this recording most of that conversation, plus we go in other directions.

He shares the commonalities of what he sees in me and my work with the people he's known and worked with who are also working or worked to change the world, including Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, John Lewis, and his wife, Mindy Fullilove. In the process, I end up sharing parts of my upcoming book. His experience with them, as well as working with prisoners and his experience with psychology and social work, gave me space to open up about racism and my past.

This episode felt personal to me. Normally I try to showcase the guest, but his experience and demeanor ended up mentoring me. I felt like I got more out of the conversation than he did, but he said he loved it.

This episode differs from most on this podcast. I suspect you'll like its openness, previews of my next book, and his warmth.

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This week, I charged my solar panel and battery on my roof for the first time for over 18 months. My building had to do maintenance during which no residents could access the roof. They told us the job would take 5 months, but it took over 18. They also didn't say exactly when it would start until one day I got an email that said I couldn't access the roof until they finished the job.

What a relief! This episode shares some of my experiences. Some I liked, like that it helped me develop resilience, it saved me more money, it led to my food being fresher, and it led me to connect with people ranging from local residents to indigenous people around the world to people who lived without electrical power in the past, which is all your ancestors up to the most recent few.

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Late summer means produce at peak ripeness, especially peaches and heirloom tomatoes. Regular readers of my blog and subscribers to my newsletter have read of how my volunteering to bring overstock food from stores to places that give it to anyone for free has led to my getting for free amounts I can barely keep up eating that people turn down.

This episode shares a saga of my confusion and exasperation at people throwing away and not accepting perfectly good food. I don't want to take it but the alternative is to throw it away.

While it's tragic that poor people don't accept this bounty of nature and our broken food system, I'm concluding a bigger picture. I think a large fraction of Americans don't know what to do with fresh, unpackaged produce. They know how to eat apples and bananas. Even other fruit, let alone vegetables like zucchini or radishes, I think they don't know what to do with. I mean, you can pick up a tomato and eat it, and heirloom tomatoes have so much flavor, eating them is like eating gazpacho. Well, the flavor is subtle, so if you're used to doof like Doritos and Ben and Jerry's, you won't notice their nuance and complexity, but still, eating them takes no skill.

A couple recent blog posts on the topic:

• When did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product?
• More fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike

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