The Social History of Plastics
We're looking back at the stories we've told on this season of Trace Material. How did we find ourselves living in the plastics age and wher...
Trace Material
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Trace Material breaks down the building blocks of our constructed environment, one material at a time. What can plastic tell us about suburbanization? What does redlining have to do with lead paint? And how did a president’s bias shape what our walls are made of?
Our Plastic Future
More than any other generation, Gen Z’s lives have been marked by climate change and climate anxiety. In this episode of Trace Material, we speak to ...
The Guilt Eraser
The nation’s first plastic bag ban in Suffolk County, NY set off panic in the plastics industry. How did industry create the myth of recycling and squ...
Dance Against the Incinerator
The push to promote disposable plastics created mountains of new waste that will never biodegrade. The burden of that waste has been placed almost ent...
Out of the Factory
The connections between vinyl chloride and diseases like cancer were first understood inside the factory setting. Workers were quite literally on the ...
The House of Documents
In the 1970s, workers in PVC factories across the country began getting sick with a rare form of liver cancer. While the plastics industry claimed th...
Mi Sueño Tupperware
In post-war America everything that people touched––paint, fabric, dishes, jewelry––could be made of plastic. But how did this first generation living...
The Fourth Kingdom
Our story starts at the turn of the twentieth century, when the natural materials everyday objects were made from were becoming scarce. Enter the era ...
Season 2 Trailer
Here's a first listen of Trace Material Season 2: Stories from the Plastics Age, coming your way June 16th! We were curious: what will future soc...
Looking Back at Hemp
This will be our last episode of Season 1. We’re taking a look back at all we’ve learned over the last 12 episodes. We’ve traced the story of hemp fro...