Events
UN World Environment Day
June 5, 2023
Focus is on Plastics!
Presentation to the NH Network Plastics Working Group on February 5, 2023.
What zero waste policies make sense for NH?
Topic: Ten Towns Ten Actions Campaign
Time: December 13, 2022 7:00-8:00 PM Eastern Time
Register at https://forms.gle/cNDJhyPcdhTEFCBH9
Join Sustainable Lebanon for a panel discussion with representatives of the New Hampshire Network Plastics Working Group Ten Towns Ten Actions campaign.
Kristine Baber from Dover, Ann Podlipny from Chester, and Mary Armstrong from Harrisville, all Ten Towns, Ten Actions Leaders in their communities, will share their plastic pollution reduction activities and discuss how you can become involved in the Ten Towns Ten Actions campaign.
The New Hampshire Network Plastics Working Group Ten Towns Ten Actions campaign is a group of volunteers from around New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, who work in their communities and collectively help reduce plastic waste and pollution.
Mary Armstrong lives in Harrisville, an old Mill town in the Monadnock Region of Southwest NH. She leads the Plastic Rethinkers team there, as part of the Ten Towns Initiative. Although relatively new to community activism, she is not new to organizing people and building enthusiasm. She leads an open-water swimming group (Harrisville Mermaids) and began a hiking group for non-summer days. Her career has included being a Business Analyst, Internal Auditor and Programmer. She now works as a Dance-Movement Therapist and Music Entertainer at local Retirement Homes.
Kristine Baber lives in Dover, the largest city on the Seacoast with a population of about 33,000. She co-leads the Dover Plastic Reduction Group which has been working for four years to provide education about the problems with plastic and encourage reusables and other alternatives to plastic. The group's activities include initiatives such as a white paper on The Problem with Plastics, public educational programs, regular Green Tips on alternatives to plastic, advocating for municipal Proclamations and Resolutions to reduce plastic, testifying in Concord, and a restaurant project. Kristine is a retired UNH professor, a Ten Towns participant since its inception, a political activist, and a Community Partners board member.
Ann Podlipny lives in Chester, a town east of Manchester of 5,000 residents. She believes 'think globally, act locally' is a positive way to mitigate climate change and build community. She organizes trash pick up days, teaches about plastic reuse and recycling at the local school, educates about waste reduction at the library and at town events, works with the Scouts, American Legion, seniors and other local organizations. She is a newer member of the Ten Towns with a background in teaching and social work. Now retired she is active in refugee farming, writing, social justice groups and flute playing.
Register at https://forms.gle/cNDJhyPcdhTEFCBH9
An event to help us — individuals, small groups, towns & cities — take the LOCAL actions that when enough of us do them, will have GLOBAL impacts.
How we did it - Templates you can use - Why citizen actions matter
Slides: Plastics and Carbon Cash-Back
Slides: Solar Project Warrant Articles
Resources, templates, and links document: https://bit.ly/local_actions
Taking action on Plastics: Proclamations, resolutions, warrant articles, surveys, community conversations, collaborations – they can all begin with us, citizen activists!!
Presentations from members of NH Network’s Plastics Working Group:
Christina Dubin, Portsmouth: Beyond Plastics, Surfrider
Bonnie Christie, Hopkinton
Kristine Baber, Dover
Mary Armstrong, Harrisville
Taking powerful action on Climate: A citizen's petitioned warrant article for your town!!
What 37 NH communities have done, and how you can help yours do it too. Congress is listening!
John Gage, Windham, on New Hampshire’s carboncashback.org climate warrant article project
Select Board-Sponsored Warrant Articles: A citizen's petitioned warrant article for your town!!
What NH North Country communities have done to get Solar Projects deployed, and how you can help yours do it too.
Melissa Elander, Clean Energy NH, Energy Circuit Rider (North Country)
Let's Talk Trash
The Harrisville Ten Towns Team is taking part in a Harrisville Community Conversation
Tuesday, November 15th at 7 pm at the Granite Mill in Harrisville
Marylou DiPietro has done a great job organizing the event with the assistance of the Harrisville Planning Board (Lisa Anderson and Ned Hulbert)
There will be 4 speakers from the Harrisville Ten Towns Team:
Jean Robins and Mary Armstrong will speak on NexTrex and the Ten Towns Initiative, respectfully. Connie White and Penny King will report from the Recycling Center Committee.
Let's Talk Trash
Hopkinton Waste Reduction Committee
Thursday, October 20th at 7 pm
Featured Bonnie Christie, one of the Ten Towns Team Leaders who is also chair of the Hopkinton Waste Reduction Committee.
Plastic Free July -
Take the Challenge!
The NH Network Plastics Working Group and the Ten Towns Leaders are working together on this global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution. Will you be part of Plastic Free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastics?
Many ideas and actions for Plastic Free July can be found in our toolkit: Start here!
Did you know? In the US, Senators announced a resolution to mark July 2022 as ‘Plastic Pollution Action Month’ and California introduced laws to reduce plastic, increase recycling and shift the economic burden of waste disposal to plastic producers and packagers.
Let's Rethink Plastic Panel Recording - from the Harrisville Ten Towns Team
Let’s Rethink Plastic Panel:
Ask the Experts
July 12, 2022
Joshua Arroyo-Torres – Plastic Impacts and Environmental Justice
Joshua Arroyo-Torres moved from Puerto Rico to New Hampshire to attend Antioch University New England, where he recently graduated with a M.S. degree in Environmental Studies, Advocacy for Social Justice and Sustainability and a certificate in Conservation Psychology. Arroyo is passionate about environmental justice, sustainability, and waste reduction, especially of single-use plastics. His research is focused on exploring attitudinal and behavioral readiness to phase-out single-use plastics in New Hampshire. Currently, Arroyo is Manager of the Institute for International Conservation, and a Fellow for the UNH Sustainability Institute working with the Town of Concord MA. He also volunteers for the New Hampshire Chapters of the Surfrider Foundation and Sierra Club.
Christina Dubin – Local Policy Issues
Christina holds a Master of Public Policy from the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy. As secretary and campaigns coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation’s New Hampshire chapter, she focuses on advocacy for local, state, and federal policies to reduce single-use plastic waste. Another focus for Christina is supporting the diversion of food from the municipal waste stream, which she is tackling through her volunteerism with Portsmouth WRAD (waste reduction and diversion). Christina joined the Ten Towns • Ten Actions campaign nearly a year ago and is currently the Portsmouth Regional Resource Leader. For the past nine months, she has worked as an intern for the UNH Sustainability Institute to help engage university stakeholders in sustainability.
Albert Diemand – Reducing Landfill Waste with Compost and Plastic Use Alternatives
Albert is the Co-founder & owner of Elm City Compost Initiative. He was first introduced to next level waste management when discovering composting toilets in Idaho while volunteering with AmeriCorps NCCC. Now a graduate of the Maine School of Compost as well as a Vermont Master Composter, Albert aims to bring a more sustainable form of waste management to the region.
Polystyrene Collection
Sustainable Lebanon partnered with the Lebanon Rotary Club to offer a polystyrene (sometimes incorrectly called styrofoam) collection day on Saturday, April 16, 2022.
Watch this photo carousel to see how a group of dedicated folks kept a trailer-load of polystyrene out of the our landfills.
The foam will be densified and reused.
Unwrap the Future:
Explore Ways Our Actions Will Reduce Plastic in Our Lives
Cindy Heath will share inspiration, team building skills, and collaborations leading to the Plastic Work Group and the Ten Towns • Ten Actions Toolkit.
Cindy cofounded the Living a Sustainable Lifestyle: Tea and Talk Gatherings.
Activists in town and community sustainability efforts will learn from Cindy and each other. You will take home ten successful and inspiring models for how to bring change and reduce plastic in your life.
In case you missed it, here are the slides: Faith group presentation (PDF)
February 2022 NH Network Event
In case you missed it, click the button below for the recording.
Unwrap the Future: Practical Advice to Reduce Plastic Pollution in our Communities ✔
A Panel Discussion to Launch the
Ten Towns ● Ten Actions Toolkit
Moderator: Dr. Bob McLellan, NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action
Portsmouth High School Environmental Change Organization
“Harnessing the Power of Youth Influence for Environmental Change”
Christina Dubin, “Rethinking Plastic: Policies & Actions”
NH Surfrider Rise Above Plastics Coordinator, Sustainability Planner, UNH Carsey School
Patsy Beffa-Negrini, PhD, RDN, Introducing the Ten Towns ● Ten Actions Toolkit NH Network Plastics Work Group, Nelson Community Choice Aggregation Committee
Susanne Moser, PhD, “A Practical Guide to Effecting Change & Messages of Hope” is a geographer (Ph.D. 1997, Clark University) who works in the US and internationally as an independent scholar and consultant from a base in western Massachusetts, the unceded ancestral homeland of the Nipmuc and Pocumtuc. Her work focuses on adaptation to climate change, science-policy interactions, climate change communication, and psycho-social resilience in the face of the traumatic and transformative challenges associated with climate change. She has served on scientific advisory boards for Future Earth, the International Science Council, the US National Research Council and contributed to IPCC and US national climate assessments.
Description: Globally, more than 380 million tons of plastic waste annually harm our health, pollute our environment, and hurt our economy. This panel discussion will highlight practical solutions individuals and communities are taking to address plastic pollution in NH, and launch the Ten Towns ● Ten Actions Toolkit. Our website contains a menu of actions, and contact information for technical support from our Ten Towns group of leaders. Learn how students in Portsmouth helped pass a ban on single use plastic, and how we can build momentum at a local level to demonstrate New Hampshire can break free from plastic.
Commit to taking action in your town!
Visit https://www.10towns.org/ to learn more and join the campaign.
Hungry for More on Plastics? Suggested reading: The New Coal: Plastics (www.beyondplastics.org); How Bad Are Plastics Really? (www.theatlantic.org)
On Oct 31, 2021
The NH Network Plastics Working Group invited Dr. Vanessa Druskat to one of our early meetings to share her insights into the 'Emotional Intelligence of Teams'.