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Environmentalism, Then and Now

Linda Greer:
Director, health program
Year joined NRDC: 1990

Then: "One of my first projects at NRDC dealt with reauthorization and oversight of the Superfund program, which requires the cleanup of sites that have been contaminated with toxic waste. I was also working on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates disposal of newly created hazardous waste at industrial facilities. So my work really focused on the long-term problems of toxic waste disposal, and on the effort to avoid creating a whole new generation of Superfund sites. To that end, an enormous amount of my day-to-day work was spent overseeing EPA's enforcement of those laws."

Now: "The biggest difference now is that I, and NRDC, have substantially shifted away from focusing on toxic waste disposal because we decided there's more bang for the buck in getting manufacturers to stop creating toxic chemicals in the first place. The waste end is sort of like the pathology department -- once waste is already generated, there are only so many things you can do with it and most of them are not good. Also, my vision has expanded from simply trying to improve government policy to coming up with ways to make companies feel like they have to -- or want to -- reduce pollution and toxic waste."

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Photo: Top, Charles Seton; Bottom, Lauren Shay Lavin