Plastic Crisis – Show-me Less Plastic in Rolla

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The Show-me Less Plastic project held a workshop in Rolla. That’s close enough to where I live for me to be there and talk about how we formed a Beyond Plastics local group in Springfield.

The workshop was held on a Saturday in a conference room off the entry of the Phelps County Courthouse; it worked well on a Saturday since the building was otherwise closed.

The workshop proceeded with a Plastics Overview – similar info as I remember from last August with updated graphics; I took a few pictures from my seat toward the back of the room.

Lunch was plastic free! Rolla has a caterer that does a great job…has stainless steel serving pieces (and great food too)! The lunch for the recent event in Springfield was not plastic free although the team reduced the plastic by providing stainless cutlery and plates.

After lunch we talked about forming a group to work on plastic reduction activities….and I contributed my 10 minutes about our adventure forming Beyond Plastics Ozarks. The rest of the agenda included activities about youth programming, examples of engagement and outreach (tabling, presentations, screenings) …then breakout sessions on getting started, a simulation exercise and then a discussion about next steps.

The audience was interested in the topic and included a councilmember…I am optimistic that there will be a Rolla group taking actions within their community to reduce plastics.

Plastic Crisis – Plastic and Conservation After School Program

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I participated in a program about plastics and conservation for an after-school program at an area school. The grade range for the 43 participants was first through eighth grade. We did the program twice…to make the group size more management for the activities.

The gym was equipped with a projector for our short slide show to set the stage (featured a short video of animals in Missouri, a beautiful view of the Missouri river/a view of the river bank full of plastic waste), a little about how plastic is produced, and a picture of peanut the turtle (a turtle rescued with band of plastic around its middle deforming its shell).

There were two activities that the students rotated through: 1) a web game where a ball of yarn was thrown to participants in a circle representing parts of a Missouri ecosystem  to help the students visualize what happens as plastic impacts a web of life– usually in negative way and 2) looking at a piece of synthetic fabric under a microscope and talking more how many things we use every day are plastic and are shedding tiny pieces as we wear them…and launder them.

The whole group was back together for the last activity. There was a bin of water to represent a river and a small empty bin to represent a landfill. Every 30 seconds another small bin of trash was dumped into the ‘river’….and there was an effort to scoop it up and put it in the ‘landfill.’ It didn’t take long before 1) the landfill was overflowing and 2) there were still some trash in the river that we didn’t get out fast enough!

As we summed up, we asked what kinds of things they could do to reduce plastics…lots of interesting ideas emerged. When we asked if they thought their school could try a plastic free lunch day next school year …they were enthusiastic. Some of them said they should try a week or a month plastic free. It might not be as hard for their school since the cafeteria has reusable items. They agreed that those that brought their lunch might need to rethink small plastic bags!

At the end we were handed Thank You notes the children had made!

Plastic Crisis – Earth Day Music Festival

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My second Earth Day Festival for 2026 was Springfield’s Earth Day Music Festival - a plastic-free, leave-no-waste sustainability-driven live music festival. For Beyond Plastics Ozarks, it was our first tabling event. Our goal was to talk to festival goers about reducing plastics in tangible ways…hand out donated reusable bags to those willing to use them rather than taking the store-provided single use plastic bags…and develop a list of people willing to join our efforts.

I started the day early since I was bringing the materials for the table: tables, banner, camp chairs, umbrella with weighted base (and extra weights), info sheets from Show-me Less Plastic, and a mind map I created for what individuals can start doing at home. I had started adding rocks to make sure papers did not blow away but, once I looked at the forecast and saw it was going to be very breezy, I added decorative bookends to the bins….and there were 55 donated bags of various sizes/colors to hand out. The collapsible wagon I had recently purchased from Costco held everything which meant I didn’t have to carry anything more than a few steps. I was at the venue early enough to park in a nearby garage so I simply loaded my wagon after I parked and walked across the street with it rather than unload at the curb before I parked the car.

Our assigned space was under a tree! I had an umbrella that I set up for a few hours but took it down after the wind got too gusty; the tree provided plenty of shade. Other than the wind gusts, the weather was perfect for the festival.

The rocks and bookends worked great. After I got them arranged well, there were no papers blowing from our table. The indoor plants vendor next door was challenged to keep smaller plants on the shelves. They kept blowing off and landing in our booth! A booth further down that was doing a craft (nature stamps on cards) occasionally had cards flying.

I was at the table most of the time from about 9:30 to 6…setting up initially for the festival to open at 11…and packing up at 6 when the evening musicians were just setting up. I appreciated being able to leave before the crowds…just as I had arrived before the crowds.

It was a good first tabling – over 100 people stopped to talk and over 25 people indicated there were interested in learning more. Of course – this event being plastic free was probably a friendlier audience than we will find generally. I learned more about tabling on a windy day (bookends worked great…the umbrella did not)…and that the wagon was a great purchase for this type of event.

I did browse the other tables at mid-day…came home with a free smooth sumac to plant in a back corner of my yard. Lunch was 3 tacos in the compostable container from one of the food trucks. I refilled my water bottle at the water wagon a few times! Overall – a productive day for Beyond Plastics Ozarks…and enjoyable too with music and dancing just down the hill for our booth.

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2026

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April was full of springtime happenings worth celebrating.

Native plants for my garden. I celebrated finding all the plants on my list at a native plant sale….and when I got all 28 of them planted.

Angel’s Diner. Celebrating finding a great place to stop for lunch on my way home from my monthly trips to Dallas….in McAlester OK.

Luna moths. 10 luna moths emerged from cocoons that had overwintered in my John Deere room. I celebrated every time one took off into the wild.

Another red buckeye. My young red buckeye that made it through the winter was killed by several frosts as its buds were popping…so it was a day to celebrate when a Master Naturalist friend dug up a seedling from her yard for me.

Dandelion and violet leaves in my salads. It’s that time of year when I don’t need to buy leafy greens…there are so many that are available in my yard. I’m celebrating the bounty.

Pawpaw and elderberry seedlings. I hadn’t anticipated how hard digging 10 holes for seedlings was going to be….so the biggest celebration of the day was when it was done!

Earth Day. I celebrated having 2 (very different) tabling gigs for Earth Day this year.

Scissor-tailed Flycather. Celebrating that they are back…I saw one in Oklahoma on my trip to Lewisville/Dallas this month.

Rhododendron blooming. Celebrating the big clusters of flowers.

Show-me less plastic events. 2 successful events….good interactions and learning experiences. Celebrating baby steps toward plastic reduction.

Plastic Crisis – Show-me Less Plastic

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I participated in 2 Show-me Less Plastic events this past week. Both were learning experiences!

The first one was a Clean Water Day at the Missouri Capitol building in Jefferson City. It is over 2 hours driving from where I live so I had an early start to the day to get there around 9. I was a little later into the building since I hadn’t anticipated the parking situation when the legislature is in session; I got my steps for the day! On the way in I took a picture of the building (notice that my walk was up hill on the way in). There was a bridge across a stream as I go closer – and I noticed plastic on the bank and hung up in a tree. On the plus side, I noticed good sized fish in the water and birds flitting in/out of drainage holes in the abutment on the way back to my car at the end of the day.

The table for Show-me Less Plastic was on the 3rd floor of the building. It was already set up when I got there. I added my mind map of what individuals can do in the curve of ‘Cut Plastic from your Plate’ display.

The people stopping by to talk at the table was often slow…but full of variety – a few representatives, school groups, reporters, lobbyists. As usual – most people were aware of microplastics….and were primed for conversations about how to reduce exposure enough to avoid adverse health implications…few realized how pervasive plastics are in everything around us.  

The second event was a few days later and within 15 minutes from my house…at a local library. It was a regional roundtable of non-profits and local governments – primarily water and waste focused.

Lunch was from Chipotle – unfortunately with a lot of plastic containers although the Show-me Less Plastic group provided reuseable (metal) forks, plates, and serving spoons. It was a lesson of how difficult it is to purchase take-out food in non-plastic containers in Springfield MO!

It started with a slide show presentation. I photographed the chemicals in plastic chart; most people are surprised that 26% of the chemicals in plastic are known to be hazardous! It’s one of the background things to keep in mind when considering actions.

My favorite parts were the strategy prioritization exercise and the final group discussion. The conversation was around outreach to increase awareness…encouraging individual actions toward taking baby steps at the community level. Most participants seemed to agree that once people become convinced that there are health consequences for the ubiquitous current and projected plastic….that there will be increased demand for community action…and beyond.

Plastics Crisis – Events in April

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There seems to be a lot of plastic related activities on my calendar for April.

Beyond Plastics Ozarks will have a table at the Earth Day Music Fest in Springfield later in the month…lots of prep and logistics to work through between now and the event. Info sheets are the easy items …we are developing things to draw people to the table (maybe a plastic trash monster…maybe a big BYOB (standing for “Bring Your Own Bag”!) and then handing out reusable bags collected from various places or maybe having a ‘craft’ making a reusable bag from an old t-shirt).

There will also be a day with Stream Teams United at the state capitol to learn more of the legislative process and perhaps meet our state Representatives/Senators. I’ve never done anything like this before so it will be a learning experience. There are several plastic related bills that have been proposed in this session.

In early May we have an after school program for K-5 students at a smaller town school district northeast of Springfield. The educator that works with the Show-me Less Plastic project is helping with it. It should be a fun day for us and the students.

There is still a big challenge of getting more people actively engaged. There seem to be many people interested but we are yet not connecting with people that want to go beyond individual action at this point.

Plastics Crisis – Action at the Community Level

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Over the past month or so, I have begun working with a small group of people to create a Beyond Plastics local group. We chose to call ourselves Beyond Plastics Ozarks to reflect that we are going to be working across a larger area than Springfield MO. We are thrilled to see our pin on the Beyond Plastics map – filling in the southwest Missouri space.

We have met twice and are working on our website; the part of the website that might be worth looking at now is our collection of recent plastics related articles. We are fortunate that we can leverage the efforts of the Show we less plastics project at the state level since they are offering a Plastics learning series (webinars) in the first quarter next year….allowing us to get that message out while we focus on honing our action plans. We have also benefited from the Beyond Plastics guide for setting up a new local group and that they provide a Zoom account for us too. The logo below was created for us by Beyond Plastics. Both state (Show me less plastics) and national (Beyond Plastics) organizations have materials we can use as well. Now for the hard work of picking campaigns that will be effective for our area of Southwest Missouri.

Concurrently we have identified three campaigns and have started exploration/planning for two of them. 2026 is going to be a busy year and I am hopefully that we will find additional people to help…and lots of people that are interested in learning more about the plastics issue.

Plastics Crisis: A continuing journey

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The past few weeks have been very busy, and I haven’t had time report on my continuing journey.

I attended my first ‘show me less plastics’ bimonthly zoom meeting. Everyone on the call seemed to be in the same initial mode…trying to figure out how to move forward. The largest group was from St. Louis…some from Kansas City and Columbia. There was one other person from Springfield. I will continue to dial into the zoom meetings and use them as a forcing function for myself to have something to report!

CNN did an experiment with three of its reporters (in New York, London, and Hong Kong) wearing chemical-tracking wristbands to find out what kind of chemicals they are exposed to. The video report can be found online - https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/climate/video/chemical-monitoring-wristbands-climate-digvid although there is not a lot of detail…it does indicate that people in big cities are probably exposed to a lot of chemicals as they go about their daily lives.

Living near a smaller city (Springfield MO), I do track the air quality. I know that when it is not green, the PM2.5 pollutants are usually the pollutant that is high…and that is made of microplastics and associated chemicals. The air quality where I lived in Maryland (between Baltimore and DC) prior to moving to Springfield was yellow more frequently and, sometimes, even made it to the red level.  So – moving to Springfield probably has reduced my exposure somewhat.

When I had my annual checkup with my doctor, I brought up microplastic exposure and she acknowledged the issue…but didn’t have any specific recommendations about what to do aside from avoiding bottled water and looking hard at getting plastics out of the kitchen, particularly anything that is heated and contacts food.

I have reduced my soft drink consumption to almost zero (avoid plastic bottles) and am drinking more iced tea. But wait….coffee makers (that I was using to make tea) have a lot of plastics and there are plastic fibers in many filters (so they will hold up better) and some tea bags are glued together (a plastic). Obviously there is heat involved in making tea so I changed my process:

  • Old Pyrex measuring cup (it was my mother’s and the markings are almost worn off)

  • Cut open the tea bag and empty the contents into the water

  • Heat in the microwave

  • Strain the tea leaves with a metal strainer

It’s becoming a good routine….and I am aware that making tea is becoming a ritual rather than just a routine because of the old Pyrex. It could be almost as old as I am!

One thing I am noticing…my trash and recycle are trending downward…not as much in the bins. That’s a good thing!

Previous Plastic Crisis posts