Discarded

The shadow of Goliath is looming over St. James Parish, Louisiana, and it’s called The Sunshine Project. This $9.4 billion proposed petrochemical plant would sprawl across 2,400 acres, pushing up against the community that has lived and died there for generations. Our David is lifelong resident Sharon Lavigne. After teaching special education at the local school for over 30 years, Sharon becomes an accidental activist trying to sav...

St. James Parish is a place with tangled roots. The community shoulders the burdens of many who have come before them — and bears a deep responsibility to their ancestors to protect their hard-fought land. What started out as just a meeting of concerned citizens around a pot of gumbo turned into a quest to reclaim land, graves, and preserve a thriving community. 

This series is presented in partnership with Only One, the action pla...

The invention of plastic changed the way we live — and now we’re hooked. We travel from Louisiana, where plastic is born, to New Jersey, where plastic goes to die… or live again. We explore greenwashing, wish-cycling, and our collective culpability as we try to understand how we became so reliant on plastic — despite knowing its harm to the earth and the communities closely impacted. 

This series is presented in partnership with On...

Hundreds of thousands of tiny plastic pellets fill the docks and bays of the Mississippi River. There are people who paddle out every morning to collect them, removing what they can as pellets continue to flood the water. But the problem starts much closer to home. Look around your house. See all the plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic everything? We are all at fault – and, like Sharon Lavigne, we all have the power to make a ch...

We're sharing an episode from a podcast we enjoy called The Carbon Copy. In this episode, you’ll learn about the great electrician shortage. To decarbonize the economy, we need to electrify everything. That means installing millions of heat pumps, EV chargers, electric water heaters and rooftop solar panels.

But there’s one big problem: finding enough electricians to make it happen. Electricians across the country are ...

Rise St. James members Sharon and Shamell Lavigne talk with host Gloria Riviera about the work that comes after Discarded. 

This series is presented in partnership with Only One, the action platform for the planet. Only One is on a mission to restore ocean health and tackle the climate crisis in this generation — with your help. Visit only.one to learn more and get involved.

CREDITS

Discarded is a Lemonada original, presented by On...

Good Things from Lemonada Media is a podcast about the good people in the world who are rolling up their sleeves and working hard to make things better. Each week, we'll be talking about this country's most complex and confounding issues in an effort to affect systemic change, with a rotating cast of incredible guests and Lemonada hosts. From the dire condition of the American foster care system to the decline of Diversity, Equity ...