Toxic Plastic Chemicals Number in the Thousands, Most Are Unregulated, Report Finds
“Life in plastic; it’s fantastic,” so the song goes, but in reality, plastics and the chemicals used to create them have been increasingly linked to numerous harms to human health and the environment. And with new plastic chemicals entering the market all the time, it’s been difficult for regulators and policy makers to determine the scope of the problem. Now, for the first time, researchers have pulled together scientific and regulatory data to develop a database of all known chemicals used in plastic production.
Plastics Are Fossil Fuel Industry’s Plan B. Fenceline Communities Pay the Price.
Just this past January, new studies found huge numbers of plastic particles in bottled water and microplastics in nearly 90 percent of sampled proteins like beef and tofu. These reports follow many others that have found microplastics and nanoplastics in nearly every crevice of our world: clouds and rivers, Arctic sea ice and sea mammals, heart tissue and breast milk and even placentas.
Dark Plastics
If your home has HDPE plastic containers— it almost certainly does; look for the No. 2—you should know some of it may have been treated with a process called fluorination. And you might be exposing yourself to PFAS, the “forever chemicals.”
EPA Announces New ‘Work Plan’ for East Palestine 7 Months Later
Minutes after workers burned five tankers of vinyl chloride after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, a toxic plume of smoke smothered the area for miles. Residents scrambled to get away, worried for their health and safety. Now, seven months later, the Environment Protection Agency announced a new “work plan” — which, for the first time since the derailment, broadens the scope of possible contamination.
President Biden, Come to East Palestine and Bring FEMA With You
The Ohio train derailment is not a comeback story, it's a grim warning. It's about an industry that values profit over people and the environment, and about a regulatory system that has failed to keep these industries in check. There is an undeniable connection between this disaster and the plastics industry. The production of PVC plastic depends on transporting harmful chemicals like vinyl chloride. The insatiable demand for plastics has driven the need for increased transport of these hazardous substances, placing communities near rail tracks under constant threat. As company profits soar, our communities are left to grapple with the aftermath of their negligence.
How Plastics Are Poisoning Us
Eventually, though, like Franklin-Wallis, Schaub comes to see that she’s been living a lie. Midway through her experiment, she signs up for an online course called Beyond Plastic Pollution, offered by Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the E.P.A. Only containers labelled No. 1 (pet) and No. 2 (high-density polyethylene) get melted down with any regularity, Schaub learns, and to refashion the resulting nurdles into anything useful usually requires the addition of lots of new material. “No matter what your garbage service provider is telling you, numbers 3, 4, 6 and 7 are not getting recycled,” Schaub writes. (The italics are hers.) “Number 5 is a veeeery dubious maybe.”
Countries Are Negotiating a New Global Treaty to Drastically Reduce the Plastic Waste That Has Been Poisoning the World
Late last year, world leaders, scientists, and advocates started working on a global, legally binding treaty under the United Nations to end plastic waste. The second round of negotiations concluded last week in Paris with a plan to produce an initial draft of the deal. This treaty could be huge. Although it will take months of negotiating for any of the details to become clear, the agreement — set to be finalized by the end of 2024 — will require countries to do far more than just fix their recycling systems.
Recycled and Reused Food Contact Plastics Are ‘Vectors’ for Toxins – Study
Recycled and reused food contact plastics are “vectors for spreading chemicals of concern” because they accumulate and release hundreds of dangerous toxins like styrene, benzene, bisphenol, heavy metals, formaldehyde and phthalates, new research finds.
13,000 Petition Signatures Delivered to New York Capitol Urging Passage of Packaging Reduction Bill
In her post-EPA life, Judith Enck has made limiting the production and use of a plastic her life’s work. Her mission before the end of Albany’s legislative session is passage of an extended producer recycling bill, the “Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act," sponsored by the chairs of the Environmental Conservation Committees in both houses — state Assemblymember Deborah Glick and Sen. Pete Harckham.
Sick of All the Plastic in Your Life? A Proposed New York Bill Would Reduce It — And It Has a Shot
Advocates say polls show that the public is on their side. They delivered a petition including 13,000 e-signatures to the Assembly and Senate leadership offices. Lawmakers were off for the long holiday weekend before resuming session Tuesday for a two-week sprint to adjournment. With just seven working days left of the official 2023 legislative session, advocates for a measure that would reduce plastic packaging by half say their bill is gaining momentum.
Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act Proposed to NYS Legislature
The current New York State legislative session is scheduled to adjourn around June 9. A proposed Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (assembly bill 5322 and senate bill 4246) may be voted on before the close of the session. The act would require plastic packaging to be reduced by half, reduce toxics in packaging and prohibit plastic burning.
‘The Poison Plastic’: Why Calls Are Growing for a Ban on PVC
A toxic train derailment in Ohio has forced an uncomfortable conversation in the US. The pollution and response to the accident was bad enough for local residents, but black and lower-income communities face the effects of America’s dirty plastic industry on a daily basis.
East Palestine Families Living in Limbo Months After Fire
Almost 3 months after a fiery Norfolk Southern train derailment blackened the skies, sent residents fleeing and thrust East Palestine into a national debate over rail safety, residents say they are still living in limbo. They’re unsure how or whether to move on from the accident and worry what will happen to them and the village where they have deep family roots, friendships and affordable homes.
The Growing Oil and Gas Industry Means More Incidents Like East Palestine.
There’s a common thread linking many of the high-profile chemical spills that have made headlines across the country lately: the oil and gas industry. Philadelphia residents were on high alert after the Trinseo latex plant 20 miles from the city released at least 8,100 gallons of acrylic polymers into a tributary for the Delaware River on March 24. Those acrylic polymers were made up of compounds known as butyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylate; all are produced from fossil fuels.
Water Scare Latest Attack on Pa. By Plastics | Will Bunch Newsletter
“This has been a very bad month for people in Pennsylvania who want to drink clean water and breathe clean air,” Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama years who now teaches at Bennington College and heads a group called Beyond Plastics, told me on Monday.
A New Research Review Describes Plastics, ‘From Cradle to Grave,’ as a Toxics Crisis and Says the UN Must Act to Limit Production
Chemicals found in plastics cause cancer, disrupt hormones, harm human reproductive systems and lead to obesity and diabetes, the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Human Health finds.
How to ‘Make Some Good’ Out of East Palestine, Ohio, Rail Disaster? Ban Vinyl Chloride, Former EPA Official Says
Outrage over last month’s Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, continued this week as former regional Environmental Protection Agency administrator Judith Enck called on the agency to ban vinyl chloride, the cancer-causing chemical at the center of the disaster.
EPA Drops the Ball in East Palestine
The people of East Palestine, Ohio were left in the dark about toxic chemical risks in the wake of the fiery train derailment, says Judith Enck, a former regional administrator of the EPA. Her commentary calls out the EPA’s delayed and weak response and urges the agency to take steps to regain the public’s trust.
This “Climate-Friendly” Fuel Comes With an Astronomical Cancer Risk
Almost half of products cleared so far under the new federal biofuels program are not in fact biofuels — and the EPA acknowledges that the plastic-based ones may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health or the environment.