The Neighborhood United Church of Christ in Bath and the Earth Care Team of First Parish Church in Brunswick are partnering to inform area residents about the many related challenges and opportunities that go along with plastic pollution. Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick will host the first evening at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30. The second evening is slated for 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5, at Patten Free Library in Bath.

On the first evening, Mariel Geiger, policy lead of the Surfrider Foundation’s Maine Chapter, will speak on “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of Plastics.” Vanessa Berry, the Natural Resource Council of Maine’s Sustainable Maine program manager will follow, speaking on Maine’s first-in-the-nation “Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging” legislation.

The second evening will feature Megan Mansfield-Pryor, Bath city councilor and Waste Management Climate Policy advisor at the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future. She will speak on “Town Efforts to Reduce Plastic Pollution.” Also featured will be Bea Johnson, ecomaine environmental educator, speaking on the topic of “What To Do About Plastics in Your Home.”

“All of us should be concerned about the toxic chemicals in plastics, their damage to our environment and health threats to us,” First Parish’s Earth Care Team Leader Jennifer Spillane said in a prepared release. “It’s such a huge problem, but we can’t let that stop us from better understanding the risks and doing something about them.”

Both sponsoring churches have a longstanding interest in learning about environmental issues and doing something about them. Energy efficiency upgrades including insulation, heat pumps and solar have been pursued by both institutions, with The Neighborhood UCC in the process of installing an “ecoscape” of native plants and a rain garden to capture water runoff. Both congregations are concerned about global warming and its threats to local communities, and the connection between fossil fuels and plastics.