Trace Material
Trace Material breaks down the building blocks of our constructed environment, one material at a time. What can plastic tell us about suburbanization? What does redlining have to do with lead paint? And how did a president’s bias shape what our walls are made of?
Episodes
32 episodes
Harvesting Housing
We’ve spent this season tracing how fungi, and especially mycelium, can shake up industries and remediate the harm caused by climate change. We’ve talked about foraging, growing, healing and commercializing mycelium. But there’s one frontier we...
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Season 3
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Episode 5
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20:08
Mycelium for the Masses
Mycelium based materials have a wealth of potential applications. But how does a new material get out of the experimental phase and into mass production? That transition is often where material development can stall. Luckily, that i...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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23:35
Nature's Detox
Did you know that Mycelial networks can break down dead plant or animal matter and they can connect with the roots of living plants to share nutrients between them? Whether that was news or not, mycelial networks are much more complicated than ...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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21:23
The Citizen Scientist
The power of fungi has been neglected by academic institutions and marginalized in the larger society. By the 1960s the American imagination had linked fungi to magic mushrooms, the counterculture movement, and Nixon’s war on drugs. That linger...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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19:32
Into the Woods
In this episode we go on a journey led by revered mycologist John Michelotti into the forests of the Catskill mountains to learn the basics about what makes mushrooms so special. Can fungi change the way we approach our ecosystem? Can they give...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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18:35
Season 3 Trailer
Trace Material explores the intersection of our lives and the lives of the materials that surround us, one material at a time. This year, for Trace Material’s third season, the podcast team at HML is investigating fungi.Does this mysteri...
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Season 3
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1:16
Trace Material Live: The Plastics Inferno
Over the course of this season, we’ve told stories of iconic plastic objects like Tupperware and Bakelite and looked at how this material has woven itself into our culture and our bodies. We’ve traced how we found ourselves in the plastics age,...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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47:46
The Social History of Plastics
We're looking back at the stories we've told on this season of Trace Material. How did we find ourselves living in the plastics age and where might we go from here? Be sure to go back and listen to any episodes you may have missed...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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24:40
Our Plastic Future
More than any other generation, Gen Z’s lives have been marked by climate change and climate anxiety. In this episode of Trace Material, we speak to young climate activists to understand how they’re imagining a future away from plasti...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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26:40
The Guilt Eraser
The nation’s first plastic bag ban in Suffolk County, NY set off panic in the plastics industry. How did industry create the myth of recycling and squash potential bag bans?We speak to Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who sponsored the ba...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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29:24
Dance Against the Incinerator
The push to promote disposable plastics created mountains of new waste that will never biodegrade. The burden of that waste has been placed almost entirely on the shoulders of low-income communities of color. This week, activists sh...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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35:06
Out of the Factory
The connections between vinyl chloride and diseases like cancer were first understood inside the factory setting. Workers were quite literally on the frontline. But today we're taking you outside the factory walls and into fenceline communities...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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23:27
The House of Documents
In the 1970s, workers in PVC factories across the country began getting sick with a rare form of liver cancer. While the plastics industry claimed they were unaware of what was causing that cancer, internal documents told a different stor...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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30:16
Mi Sueño Tupperware
In post-war America everything that people touched––paint, fabric, dishes, jewelry––could be made of plastic. But how did this first generation living in a plastic world learn to accept it as part of their daily lives?
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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33:55
The Fourth Kingdom
Our story starts at the turn of the twentieth century, when the natural materials everyday objects were made from were becoming scarce. Enter the era of the inventor, it was time to forge new materials and build a new world.
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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22:45
Season 2 Trailer
Here's a first listen of Trace Material Season 2: Stories from the Plastics Age, coming your way June 16th! We were curious: what will future societies think of us when they dig up relics of our present day?
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Season 2
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3:00
Looking Back at Hemp
This will be our last episode of Season 1. We’re taking a look back at all we’ve learned over the last 12 episodes. We’ve traced the story of hemp from its colonial roots in America, through the war on drugs, and legalization. The future of the...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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14:39
A New Dawn in New Castle
In this episode, we’re heading to New Castle to see how the folks at DON are building a hemp industry from the ground up to support their vision of healthy, affordable, accessible housing.
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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15:24
Talking Shop with Alex Sparrow
Alex Sparrow is repairing centuries old buildings across the UK, and in doing so, laying the groundwork for a carbon neutral future. As you may have guessed, he’s doing it with HempLime. Alex literally and figuratively wrote the book on HempLim...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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36:18
Talking Shop with Blake Eagle
On this week’s episode, we’re heading back to the Sun Valley to Talk Shop with Blake Eagle. Blake is a contractor who, after years of exposure to the unhealthy materials of standard practice building, decided to construct Idaho’s first...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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26:58
Talking Shop with Cameron McIntosh
This week we’re Talking Shop with Cameron McIntosh, the owner of hemp/lime construction company Americhanvre. Cameron is a leader in the emerging US HempLime landscape and in this episode, he chats with HML co-director Jonsara Ruth abo...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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32:31
Talking Shop with Mattie Mead
For our first ever Talking Shop episode, HML Director Alison Mears spoke with Hempitecture co-founder and CEO Mattie Mead.Based in Ketchum, ID, Hempitecture built the United States’ first public use hemp building as well as many private ...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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32:54
The Natural Building Omnivore
This episode features Chris Magwood, who is our neighbor to the North. He talks to us about the industry's successes and struggles and what he hopes for the future. But...we don't just talk about hemp, Chris is a natural building omnivore and y...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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11:53
