Tuesday, September 24, 2019 – This is the fifth-annual Bioplastics Week, an event designed to educate consumers and the plastics industry about plastics made from things like vegetable oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, and even recycled food waste. This summer, NDSU was names as the lead site for an effort to research bioplastics like pots for plants that are fully biodegradable. Joining us to discuss this emerging industry is David Grewell, chair of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at NDSU. ~~~ Tom Isern shares a Plains Folk essay titled “Real Things in Real Places.” ~~~ The second annual North Dakota GLBTQ+ Summit is coming up October 4th through the 6th in Mandan. One of the presentations will feature the “Breaking Barriers” oral history project undertaken by the Red River Rainbow Seniors. Today we share another excerpt from that project as we hear from David Fischer, who was born in 1950 and grew up when being gay was often puzzling, and being out wasn’t imaginable. ~~~ Cindy Roholt was the interviewer on that visit with David. She’s also one of the organizers of the upcoming LGBTQ+ Summit in Mandan. She and co-organizer Christina Lindseth joins us to discuss the need for such a summit.