Our Commitment to Environmental Justice

Plastic pollution is a growing global environmental crisis that disproportionately burdens people of color around the world. At every juncture, plastics create pollution—from the extraction of its petrochemical building blocks, to the greenhouse gases created during manufacturing, to the toxic exposure during use, to the global waste trade that dumps millions of tons of non-recyclable plastic waste in developing countries, to the unsightly litter on streets and beaches, to the harm that microplastics cause to fisheries, to the belching incinerators that burn municipal waste, poisoning our air and water and creating toxic ash that ends up in yet another dump. 

This pollution threatens the health of people everywhere, and predominantly harms minority and low-income people whose communities host a disproportionate number of petrochemical and waste disposal facilities. The compounding environmental burdens borne by these communities make the people that live there more susceptible to certain illnesses, such as cancer or asthma, which then make them even more vulnerable to illnesses such as COVID-19. 

These communities are chosen by the petrochemical and waste management industries because they know they’re unlikely to encounter meaningful resistance from these historically underfunded and disenfranchised communities. These communities are also the most vulnerable to the ravages of climate change, as we have seen with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and countless other storms. 

Communities of color and indigenous communities have less access to resources and less power within our political systems. This is morally wrong and perpetuates a global history of environmental racism. The casual use of the term “Cancer Alley” to describe the stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that’s home to many petrochemical facilities illustrates how environmental racism has been normalized. This must change.

Beyond Plastics is committed, in every aspect of our work, to the 17 principles of environmental justice developed at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, and convened by the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. Thirty years later, not one of these vital principles have been fully realized.

We stand in solidarity with these communities around the world and seek to find respectful and productive ways to lend our assistance in the struggle to end plastic pollution and environmental racism. 

We appreciate your support of Beyond Plastics and urge you to also consider a generous donation to an environmental justice organization such as RISE St. James. They are working tirelessly to stop a monstrous new Formosa Plastics facility from being built in their backyard in St. James Parish, Louisiana. They are doing incredible work and would appreciate your support. You can donate to them by clicking HERE.