Heinz Family Foundation Awards 6 Individuals $1.5 Million for ‘Changing the World’

Photo by Annie O’Neill

Sherri Mason, a researcher whose work raised alarms about the dangers of plastic “microbeads” and helped spur a U.S. ban on their production, is among this year’s winners of a $250,000 Heinz Award.

“As a scientist, I love my science. But it was never enough personally for me to sit in a lab and do science and publish in peer-reviewed journal articles that are read by 10 people,” she said. “From the moment I was a small child and got interested in science at 10 years old because of acid rain, it was about affecting change on a bigger scale to sustain a brighter future.”

Mason, a chemistry professor and chair of the department of geology and environmental sciences at the State University of New York at Fredonia, is one of six people to receive this year’s Heinz Awards. The $250,000 prizes come from the Heinz Family Foundation. The awards are given to individuals who have made extraordinary attempts to help solve social, global, and environmental challenges with an innovative spirit.

Mason is self-described as “environmentally obsessed.” With ease, she can rattle off her concerns about bees, hydrofracking, and especially the world’s fresh water.

“The beginnings were pretty innocent. I really thought it was going to be a fun little side project for me because I was an atmospheric chemist at the time,” she said of her first forays that later won her awards. “But after what we found with the first expedition in 2012, I realized I had a passion and interest in freshwater plastic pollution more than any other science topic. I decided to devote my life to looking at this further and understanding it.”

Danger in Household Products

Mason’s research drew international attention to the threats to marine life of microbeads, which are extremely small plastics used in soaps and other cleansing agents and products.

Her work directly led to the enactment of the federal Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015. More than 100 manufacturers have subsequently pledged to remove microbeads from their products. Countries like Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, and Sweden have created or are in the process of creating laws against them.

Mason said her first thought when she took a call saying she had won the award was that she could afford to send her daughter to college, who this week starts at Drexel University.

“I’m a single mom. I’ve raised her all by myself financially. It’s been a struggle,” she said.

Along with Mason, this year’s winners include:

• Norman Atkins, an educator who co-founded the Relay Graduate School of Education, which has trained 3,000 current and aspiring teachers and 750 school leaders nationwide.
• Ralph Lemon, a choreographer, writer, and visual artist.
• Linda Rottenberg, a social entrepreneur whose nonprofit, Endeavor, has supported 2,000 entrepreneurs in Africa, the Middle East, and South America.
• Enric Sala, who is investigating marine ecology policy to preserve natural habitats.
• Ming Kuo, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who specializes in research that looks at the amount of green space in urban areas and how it affects crime and the prevalence of ADHD in children, among other problems.

“The larger lesson is that nature or natural elements are an essential component to a healthy human habitat,” she said. “Even small amounts of greenery make a real difference.”

In the 1990s, Kuo and another researcher, Bill Sullivan, co-founded the Human-Environment Research Laboratory, which studied public-housing areas with and without green spaces. Subsequent studies found that residents who live in buildings near greenery have lower rates of aggression, crime, and violence.

“I don’t do research to have it sit on a shelf, so seeing changes such as the commitment to tree planting in Chicago is very exciting to me and my colleagues,” she said.

Photo by William Zbaren

Public-Policy Goals

Like Kuo, Mason’s research focuses on ways to affect public policy.

While floating islands of plastic trash in the oceans get headlines, Mason’s research at the microscopic level found equally alarming trends.

“The bigger pieces of plastic are unsightly and un-aesthetically pleasing. That definitely has an impact on larger organisms like the sperm whale that beaches and has 30 plastic bags in its stomach — and as the birds are dying, their carcasses are revealing all this plastic that’s been ingested,” she said. “But smaller plastics are a bigger concern because they are so easily ingested.”

She notes that microbeads create a chain reaction in the environment.

“The impact they have on organisms is a secondary one. It’s not that you’ll eat this piece of plastic and die. What’s going to happen instead is that that piece of plastic will transfer chemicals into the organism and those chemicals migrate up the food chain, and ultimately into us.”

Hard to Change

Mason admits that true environmentalism isn’t easy. For example, she cites recycling as a Band-Aid. “It doesn’t make sense to be making items that are used for minutes out of a material that lasts for centuries. There are logical alternatives out there,” she said. “I encourage people to start with the low-hanging fruit. We’re creatures of habit.”

In her own case, she learned, sometimes the hard way, that creating new environmentally friendly habits is difficult.

“I decided, ‘That’s it. I’m done with plastic bags.’ No matter what, I just don’t. If that means I have to carry stuff out of the store without a bag because I forgot my reusable bags, then that’s what I do. You do that enough times and you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to forget my bags,’ " she said.

All six winners this year will be recognized at the 23rd annual conference in Pittsburgh on October 24. To date, 139 individuals have been recognized. More than $27.5 million has been given.

“In their unique and individual ways, our honorees break through barriers to explore new frontiers of ingenuity and human endeavor to create a better, more sustainable world for us all,” said Teresa Heinz, chair of the Heinz Family Foundation. “In these troubling times, they are a reminder of humankind’s capacity for good.”