Hybrid conference: Detoxifying Commerce

Apr 19, 2023, 1-4 pm
In-person at Boston University or online
More information and to register

1-3 pm CDT: Presenters

• Wilma Subra, independent scientist who has spent decades helping people who live near huge chemical plants in Louisiana.
• Rachel Massey – former policy expert at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute, now with the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, winner of the 2022 Pollution Prevention Champion Award from the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR).
• Nick Ashford – Originator of the idea of technology options analysis, MIT professor of environmental law, author of many authoritative books and articles, advisor to governments, trainer of many who went on to great accomplishments in the environmental field.
• Joel Tickner – founding Executive Director of the Association for the Advancement of Alternatives Assessment, founder of the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3), 2008 NPPR Pollution Prevention Champion.
• Bev Thorpe – cofounder of the pioneering firm Clean Production Action, helping companies understand the value of transparency, helping them identify chemicals of concern and learn how to institute and conduct an active program of finding safer substitutes.
• Kenneth Geiser – credited with the foundational ideas for the successful Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Program, founder of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute and the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, the Center for Environmentally Appropriate Materials, author of books and articles laying out the vision for how we may achieve a less toxic world.
• Terri Goldberg – as Pollution Prevention director at the Northeast Waste Management Officials Association and then director of the organization Terri organized meetings and information helping the states of the Northeast to learn from each other and to apply the prevention concept to their work.  She helped launch regional and national data programs and taught people how to work with companies. Her work provided an essential link between policymakers in Washington and state capitols and people doing the work on the ground.
• Swati Rayaswam – Science Associate at the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment and grassroots community organizer.

3-4 pm CDT: Participate in breakouts to refine the detox agenda or environmental data utilization

• Chris Rascher, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 1 New England, on the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act data.
• Tiffany Skogstrom, Office of Technical Assistance, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on OTA’s interactive map of hazard sources, contamination, flood risk.
• Flower Armijo, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 1 New England, former BU student, on citizen use of water quality data.
• Katelyn Tarrio, Boston University’s Earth and Environment Department, on creating as a BU student MassDEP’s first map of contaminated sources and flood risk.
•  Jonathan Arentsen, former BU student, on the analysis of TSCA and TURA data he performed that won the 2022 Most Valuable Student award from the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable.

Organized by Rick Reibstein, a founding manager of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction program and former enforcement attorney for EPA, and creator of this project class, helped by Hannah Waskelis and Aubrey Hoes.