A Forgotten African American Cemetery Discovered and Reducing Plastic in Our Oceans

Good morning, welcome to Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei. Coming up—The Tampa bay times has revealed the existence of a long forgotten African American cemetery in an area a few miles north of downtown Tampa. We’ll talk about how the cemetery was discovered and what happened to the bodies later in the program.

Also—a huge amount of plastic is ending up in the world’s oceans. We’ll speak with a Greenpeace activist about what might be done to reduce the dumping of plastic in a moment.

But first- two listener comments about yesterday’s program. Yesterday we heard a replay of the TV program Florida This Week—and the topic of undocumented immigrants, and the incarceration of immigrant children came up during a good portion of the program. Here’s what two listeners had to say.

Tape

A Greenpeace report released today, Packaging Away the Planet, ranks 20 of the largest U.S. grocery retailers for the first time on their efforts to eliminate single-use plastics. One of the key places where millions of people interact with plastic on a daily basis is their local supermarket. The assessment found that, across the board, U.S. supermarkets are failing to adequately address the plastic pollution crisis they are contributing to. Many plastics are often designed for single-use purposes where customers may have a product for mere seconds or minutes before the one-time use plastic is removed and disposed.

David Pinsky, co-author of the single-use plastics report and Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner, also authors Greenpeace USA’s annual seafood sustainability report for the nation’s largest supermarkets, holding major companies accountable and shifting seafood practices that have global impacts on our oceans.

  To read the full Packaging Away the Planet report, please visit: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/packaging-away-the-planet.pdf

  For a scorecard of how the 20 retailers ranked, please visit: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-supermarket-plastics-scorecard.png

  Photos, videos at media.greenpeace.org

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Next- a recent Tampa Bay Times investigative report—tells about the existence of a long-forgotten African American cemetery in the heart of Tampa – where hundreds of people were buried. The cemetery is no longer— a housing project and several warehouses now stand on the site.

We’ll speak next with the reporter and photographer who are covering the story for the Times.

Tampa Bay Times reporter reporter Paul Guzzo and photographer James Borchuck.

https://www.tampabay.com/florida/2019/06/23/nearly-400-people-buried-in-tampa-are-missing-what-happened-to-zion-cemetery/