PBS NewsHour to Examine the Global Plastic Problem with Primetime Special Hosted by Amna Nawaz

ARLINGTON, VA (November 5, 2019) — PBS NewsHour Presents “The Plastic Problem”  premieres on Wednesday, November 27, 2019, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). With the support of PBS, the primetime special explores how plastic is impacting the world and ways individuals can break their dependence on plastics. 

“The Plastic Problem” follows the 2018 Peabody Award-winning five-part PBS NewsHour series that explored the environmental threat from plastic pollution and potential alternatives. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of why the global extensive appetite for single-use plastic is one of the largest environmental threats. 

Traveling to multiple cities including Toronto, Canada — and with reports from Malaysia, the Pacific shores of Costa Rica, to the rocky beaches of Easter Island — NewsHour’s team discovers extensive environmental damage plastic has already caused as well as potential solutions in plastic management. This report features interviews with Roland Geyer, Industrial Ecologist, University of California, Santa Barbara; John Coyne, Vice President, Legal and External Affairs, Unilever Canada; and Bea Perez, Senior Vice President of Sustainability, Coca-Cola.

The program will also be streamed on PBS NewsHour’s digital and social platforms.

The special is produced by Executive Producer and WETA SVP Sara Just; Executive in Charge of Production James Blue; Senior Producer Lorna Baldwin, Emily Carpeaux; Producer Rachel Wellford; Associate Producers Maea Lenei Buhre and Ryan Connelly Holmes; Editor Jeff Cook; Creative Director Adam Serraf; Cinematographers Tyler Bedgood, Lisa Berglund, Malcolm Brown, Mike Fritz, Jason Lelchuk, Denis Levkovich, Jay Kemp, Eric O’Connor, Devin Pinckard, Dale West, Susheel Younas; audio, design, and additional staff: Quinton Hooper, Jules Rahman Ong, Leah Margois, Samantha Trinh, Ashley Viera, Alex Kemp, Rebecca Oh, Bryan Wood, Barbara Carvalho and Laura Santhanam; Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown and Correspondent John Yang; and Amna Nawaz serves as host.

 

About Amna Nawaz

Amna Nawaz is an Emmy and Peabody-award winning journalist who joined PBS NewsHour in April 2018 and serves as a national correspondent and primary substitute anchor. Nawaz has reported politics, foreign affairs, education, climate change, culture, and sports. She also regularly covers issues around detention, refugees and asylum, and migrant children in U.S. government custody. Nawaz has interviewed international newsmakers — including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and Brazilian leader Eduardo Bolsonaro; lawmakers and Trump administration officials – including then-ICE Director Mark Morgan’s first interview after President Trump announced mass raids across the U.S., Acting Secretary of DHS Kevin McAleenan, and former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in her first interview since leaving the Trump administration; and influential voices including Reba McEntire, Gloria Estefan, and Dev Patel.

 

About PBS NewsHour

PBS NewsHour is a production of NewsHour Productions LLC, a wholly-owned non-profit subsidiary of WETA Washington, DC, in association with WNET in New York. Major corporate funding is provided by BNSF, Consumer Cellular, and Raymond James, with additional support from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Lemelson Foundation, National Science Foundation, Skoll Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Friends of the NewsHour and others. More information on PBS NewsHour is available at www.pbs.org/newshour. On social media, visit PBS NewsHour on Facebook or follow @NewsHour on Twitter.

 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Sydney Cameron, Publicist, scameron@newshour.org