Duke Law’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic works to reduce the use and waste of plastics, especially single-use plastics, at all stages of the plastic lifecycle. Tiny plastic particles called microplastics have health impacts to animals, sea life and humans, and clinic students work with several NGOs to keep plastics out of waterways and use data to inform policy advocacy. In spring 2025, the clinic published The Cost of Litter in North Carolina in collaboration with several nonprofit partners. Finding that the state spent more than $56 million in 2023 to clean up litter — most of it plastic — the report recommends both practical strategies and policy changes at the state and local levels to reduce waste by preventing pollution at the source. READ MORE.
Climate and environmental justice are central to the clinic’s ongoing work in Badin, N.C., where decades of aluminum production contaminated soil and water in the region. Clinic members collaborated with the NC Environmental Justice Network, Concerned Citizens of West Badin and Yadkin Riverkeeper to identify locations where smelting waste was known to or suspected to have been dumped. READ MORE.
Professor Michelle Nowlin and colleagues at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment are collecting data on greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution from industrial-scale livestock operations in Robeson County, N.C. In partnership with community members, they will use the data to develop regulatory and policy proposals. READ MORE.