Without a question, we're drowning in plastic, and it's not just the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that we have to worry about.

According to the Plastic Lakes Project, 22 million pounds of plastic enters the Great Lakes every year. Of that unbelievable amount of pollution, three million pounds of plastic ends up in Lake Ontario annually.

In this timely panel conversation, we bring together the experts working along the shores of Lake Ontario to monitor the impacts of plastic on our great lake, to discuss the massive work ahead of us to clean up this mess.

Kennedy Bucci (U of T Trash Team) 
Rochelle Byrne(A Greener Future)
Sam Athey (Plastic Lakes Project)
Mark Mattson (Lake Ontario Waterkeeper / Swim Drink Fish)

This event is part of TPL's On Civil Society: Climate series, a year-long programming initiative that explores the effects that climate change is having on the only habitat we have.  We are faced with radical and unknown effects on the world’s oceans, rivers, wildlife and diminishing biodiversity.  These new realities of a future world paint a sobering picture that disrupts the very idea of humankind and its interventions on the planet.

Each month we focus on a different facet of the topic, featuring some of the world’s most innovative thinkers, scientists, activists, journalists and artists. Critical and long-neglected voices offer new perspectives on where we went wrong and, perhaps, some solutions for a healthy, sustainable and equitable future for our planet.

We will offer tools to help you weigh in with your opinions and experience, but more than this, we aim to inspire in at least some of you the desire to get involved in any way that works for you: through panels, lectures, field trips and workshops, key organizations will help you see some of those working for our planet that we didn’t even know about.

October 2021 - Oceans, Waters, Wetlands
November 2021 - Urbanism in a Warming Planet
February 2021 - Inequalities
March 2022 - Going, Arriving, Leaving: Borders and Trade
April 2022 - Transportation and Movement
May 2022 - Indigenous Perspectives

On Civil Society: Climate is a collaborative project sponsored by Toronto Public Library, the Consulat Général de France à Toronto et Institut Français.

TPL’s On Civil Society series is generously supported in part by Chris M. Reid.

Toronto Public Library is committed to accessibility. Please call or email us if you are Deaf or have a disability and would like to request accommodation to participate in this program. Please let us know as far in advance as possible and we will do our best to meet your request. At least three weeks notice is preferred. Phone 416-393-7099 or email accessibleservices@tpl.ca

Climate - The Plastic Lake: Fighting Plastic Pollution in Lake Ontario