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Growing up on the Gulf Coast of Texas, Anne-Elisabeth Baker MEM ’24 would drive past petrochemical plants on her way to the beach – a juxtaposition she found jarring. “I was overwhelmed by the idea of trash and waste. Seeing pollution on my local beach and the chemical plants right on the coast brought it all together for me,” she said. “It didn't feel like nature at that point. It felt like something more sinister.”

In her undergraduate program, Baker studied industrial design with an eye toward designing sustainable packaging. But wanting to tackle waste on a more systemic scale, she enrolled in the Master of Environmental Management program at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

Thanks to its joint venture with Duke Law, Baker was able to complement her environmental economics and policy studies with hands-on client work through the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, which brings together students from the Law School, the Nicholas School, and other graduate schools to take an interdisciplinary approach to cases.

“The clinic was by far the most formative part of my grad school experience,” Baker said. “To be as deeply involved in the law school as I was, and not be a law student, I got the best of both worlds. It challenged me to grow as a student and as a professional, and deeply influenced the lens through which I've approached my career post-graduation.”

In one of their projects, Baker and clinic partner Andrew Kelbley JD ’24, now an associate working on energy matters at Norton Rose Fulbright, worked with client Oceana, an international ocean conservation organization, to develop a plastics reduction pilot at museums and aquariums through the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR). The end goal: to reduce the amount of discarded plastic waste that can disrupt ecosystems and harm the health of humans, wildlife, and aquatic life.

Baker is now continuing that project as an Environmental Policy Fellow at the DNCR, working with current clinic students and parks personnel on a statewide initiative to phase out plastic water bottles and bags in state parks and, eventually, install water stations where visitors can refill their personal water bottles.

Making such reuse systems available and convenient in state facilities and public spaces like parks and airports not only reduces plastic waste in the short term but also changes consumer expectations and behavior over time, she said.

“In our clinic project, Andrew and I learned that the aquariums along the coast were already doing incredible work and programming to make those connections for visitors, bringing awareness to marine debris and the negative impacts on marine life,” Baker said.

“That was a great example of the importance of storytelling, and supported our perspective on how impactful a simple internal policy change could be to a local community.”

Leakage from waste management systems is a major source of environmental contamination globally. Improved waste management and recycling infrastructure, implementing stormwater controls such as “trash traps,” imposing fines for improper disposal, and improving litter cleanup can all help prevent leakage.

But these efforts cost local governments. North Carolina spent more than $53 million on litter cleanup in 2023 alone, according to a report co-authored by clinic staff scientist Dr. Nancy Lauer. 

Earlier interventions in the plastics lifecycle, such as discouraging plastic use, are more cost-effective, said clinical professor and clinic co-director Michelle Nowlin.

One example is the clinic’s advocacy work with client Don’t Waste Durham on a plan to reduce plastic waste by requiring Durham businesses to charge customers 10 cents per disposable bag used, with exemptions for low-income customers. Ordinances banning or charging for plastic bags, however, have been prohibited under North Carolina state law.

“Policies that can have the most immediate impact include procurement decisions and extended producer responsibility programs that can be as simple as bottle return bills,” Nowlin said. “Those really have the potential to change the economic calculus and to drive more innovation in terms of product design and circularity of reuse systems.”

Baker said she respects plastic’s usefulness in contexts such as health care, and its asset as a durable material. But she believes in limiting reliance on single-use applications such as disposable thin plastic bags, in favor of moving consumers toward more sustainable product materials and reuse systems such as refillable containers.

“I think ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ should be ‘Refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose – and then finally recycle’ as the last intervention,” she said. “The more you can do before recycling the better, starting with refusing to use persistent plastics.” 

Impacting policy globally and locally

In the clinic, Baker and Kelbley gained exposure to federal policymaking, drafting comments on a proposed new rule aimed at reducing single-use plastic packaging by the General Services Administration (GSA), the federal government’s central purchasing agency. The comments, suggesting specific changes to GSA procurement policies, were submitted on behalf of the North Carolina Plastic Waste Reduction Coalition, a statewide network, of which the clinic is a member, that works to limit single-use plastics through state and local policy interventions.

In November, Baker attended the Global Plastic Treaty negotiations in Busan, South Korea, observing delegates from 170 nations work on a solution to plastic pollution. While it was a heady experience, Baker came back with a new appreciation for her work in North Carolina.

“Being in the room where the global plastics conversation was happening and then reading about it in the news the next day was surreal,” Baker said. “It was so energizing to build relationships with other NGOs and understand who the stakeholders are and how these policy conversations are occurring around the world.

“But at the same time, I realized I'm exactly where I’m supposed to be. At the end of the day, international policy trickles down to the local level, and I am in a position where I don’t have to wait for that. I've been given this opportunity to facilitate meaningful change at DNCR. It feels real, it feels tangible, and building relationships within my own community is something that I deeply love and crave. I'm extremely grateful to do this work at the state level and see change happen here in North Carolina.”

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