Coverage of environmental issues and environmental inequities have been a hallmark of IRW for years. Most recently:
FRONTLINE and NPR, in a co-production with the Investigative Reporting Workshop, teamed up over seven months to examine the crisis in plastic waste in the environment.
The result: “Plastic Wars,” a 2020 one-hour program:
The producers found that despite efforts to reduce the use of plastic, the industry is scaling up new production and promoting a familiar solution: recycling. But it’s estimated that no more than 10 percent of plastic produced has ever been recycled.
Writer-director Rick Young, correspondent and reporter Laura Sullivan, co-producer and reporter Emma Schwartz, co-producer Fritz Kramer and IRW-FRONTLINE Fellow Orion Donovan-Smith revealed how plastic makers for decades have publicly promoted recycling, despite privately expressing doubts that widespread plastic recycling would ever be economically viable.
[For other environmental coverage: Read more IRW air and water investigations, including deep studies of problems in Louisiana, Florida and California.]
