When I began my role as the French Broad Riverkeeper nearly 20 years ago, I was wide-eyed and eager. I was determined to be the person who would finally clean up the French Broad River. The river's story is similar to that of many American rivers; it was so polluted that the author Wilma Dykeman once wrote, "it was too thick to drink and too thin to plow."

A baby whale washed up on a beach. Eighty-eight pounds of plastics were found in its stomach. Should we care? 

The Environmental Action Community of WNC is celebrating Plastic-Free July with an initiative encouraging all Haywood County restaurants, cafes and coffee shops to phase out single-use plastic items like straws, takeout containers, utensils and condiment packages.

A community conversation about reducing plastic pollution will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 6, at Grace Episcopal Church in the Mountains in Waynesville.

The towns of Waynesville and Canton have recently joined hundreds of other communities in declaring a need to dramatically reduce the use of throw-away/single-use plastics.

In mid-November 2021, a group of friends was passing the evening gathered around a campfire at Lake Keowee, South Carolina, when the conversation turned to plastic, its tragic overabundance in the world, and how a small group of people might address the issue at home in Western North Carolina.