Single mother spearheads mission to bring controversial industry to court: 'We have come across so many obstacles'

Simple, sustainable daily changes, like using less plastic, can have something of a domino effect on people's lives, and according to the Ithaca Voice, Yayoi Koizumi is a prime example.

Koizumi's son has autism, a diagnosis that prompted her to more closely consider the myriad chemicals and compounds in the environment and their potential effects on children.

When he left for college in 2019, Koizumi didn't just have more free time; she also had deeper knowledge of "the pervasiveness of toxic chemicals" and their abundant environmental sources.

Like plastic. 

Not long after Koizumi's son entered university, she took local action, organizing a group that would become Zero Waste Ithaca, or ZWI. 

Ithaca is part of New York's Finger Lakes region in the broader Upstate area. 

It's known as "enlightened," a "hippie town" — possibly the "most hippie" in the region, boasting its own eco-village — and while it stood to reason that efforts to boost Ithaca's sustainability would be a glide path, that wasn't the case, Koizumi recalled.

"I felt like [in] a place like Ithaca, it would be much easier to do this, but we have come across so many obstacles," she admitted. Koizumi acknowledged "success to an extent," but she and the group have had to resort to lawsuits to effect change.

In early 2025, ZWI filed suit against Cornell University to prevent the installation of artificial turf, which is controversial for its environmental impacts and detrimental effects on young athletes. 

According to the advocacy group Beyond Plastics, which collaborated with ZWI on the lawsuit, artificial turf exacerbates "plastic pollution, spreads toxins, and increases the risk of injury." Beyond Plastics also observed that synthetic turf conflicted with Cornell's sustainability goals.

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Koizumi told the Ithaca Voice that turf was selected so teams could "play in the dead of winter," a decision made "for convenience rather than essential needs." That broader observation was a recurring theme in her advocacy.

Plastic pollution is a multi-tentacled beast, one that the Ithaca woman continues to fight on several fronts. 

She's long agitated for the right of Ithaca residents to use their own takeout containers, and is now advocating for a "statewide bill" granting the same right to all New Yorkers. 

Koizumi explained that efforts often only address avoidable waste on the commercial side, with little focus on needless waste foisted on consumers. Ultimately, she explained, these issues are inherently interconnected.

"Zero waste is also a way to fight this kind of economic system built on disposability and profit at the expense of people's health and planetary environment," Koizumi said.

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