Southeastern to present next installment of Green Talks
Thursday, April 15, 2021
by: Tonya Lowentritt
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University’s Sims Library and the Sustainability
Center are presenting a series of Green Talks about timely environmental issues affecting
Southeast Louisiana. Now in its third year, the Green Talks series is part of a campaign
to promote ecological awareness at Southeastern.
“The talks last only 30 minutes and are followed by a question and answer session,”
said Sustainability Manager Alejandro Martinez. “We hope this will accommodate Southeastern
staff and students who wish to attend.”
The next talk is scheduled Wednesday, April 28, at 1 p.m. Titled “The 2020 New
Orleans Nurdle Spill – Tracking the Path of Hundreds of Millions of Plastic Pellets,”
the talk will be given by Dr. Mark Benfield of LSU’s Department of Oceanography and
Coastal Sciences.
“In August 2020, a container ship called the MV Bianca was moored in New Orleans,”
said Benfield. “During a storm, it lost four shipping containers. One of those containers
was filled with polyethylene resin pellets called nurdles. An estimated 750 million
pellets entered the river.”
Benfield will describe the events around the spill, the fate of the nurdles,
and the questions that this event raised regarding the procedures to deal with plastic
spills.
This year, due to COVID restrictions, all Green Talks are presented via Google
Meet. Recordings of the presentations will be available to all who register. Registration
is available at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevDS760-4qK-qQIJKarHdA_LM6rHhIn5yW5xfwV7ZXj1Ni8Q/viewform.
For more information, contact Outreach Librarian Angie Balius at phone (985)-549-3898
or Angie.Balius@southeastern.edu.