Link between plastic and heart attacks shows it's time to reduce packaging and its chemicals
Plastic has now been linked to increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and premature death in humans. At what point will policymakers realize this material — which lingers for centuries and is made with chemicals known to be toxic to humans — is as much a threat to human health as it is to the planet?
After Overshadowing Climate Talks, the Myth of ‘Circularity’ Looms Over the UN Plastics Treaty
Delegates from 191 countries meet once again this month for the UN plastics treaty talks in Ottawa, and they need to avoid falling into industry traps that will hinder real progress. Dow chair and CEO Jim Fitterling’s recent Commentary in Fortune is a perfect example of how to ensure failure in Ottawa. If delegates commit to the priorities he outlined, they will fail to implement real solutions to the growing problem caused by his company and companies like it.
Earth Day: How one grocery shopper takes steps to avoid ‘pointless plastic’
Nature wraps bananas and oranges in peels. But in some modern supermarkets, they’re bagged or wrapped in plastic too. For Judith Enck, that’s the epitome of pointless plastic. The baby food aisle is similarly distressing for her, with its rows and rows of blended fruits, vegetables and meat in single-use pouches that have replaced glass jars.
Environmentalists Push for Packaging Reform in New York Ahead of Earth Day
Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm about plastic pollution in the environment for years and in New York, they are pushing for legislation on the issue. Judith Enck, the former EPA regional administrator who currently serves as president of the group Beyond Plastics, joined Capital Tonight on Friday to push for a packaging reduction bill.
Plastics Industry Heats World Four Times as Much as Air Travel, Report Finds
Pollution from the plastics industry is a major force behind the heating of the planet, according to a new report from the federal government. The industry releases about four times as many planet-warming chemicals as the airline industry, according to the paper from scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Critics call out plastics industry over recycling "fraud"
About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the United States each year, but only 5 to 6 percent of it is actually recycled. A new report from the Center for Climate Integrity, "The Fraud of Plastic Recycling," accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign to "mislead" the public about the viability of recycling. Correspondent Ben Tracy talks with the report's co-author, Davis Allen, and with Jan Dell, a former chemical engineer, about an inconvenient truth surrounding the lifecycle of plastic. Air Date: Apr 14, 2024
A Breakthrough in Plastic Recycling Is Coming Up Short
To get there, these companies and others are promoting a new generation of recycling plants, called “advanced” or “chemical” recycling, that promise to recycle many more products than can be recycled today. So far, advanced recycling is struggling to deliver on its promise. Nevertheless, the new technology is being hailed by the plastics industry as a solution to an exploding global waste problem.
Plastics Punch
Beyond Plastics President Judith Enck, who served as an EPA regional administrator during the Obama administration, says the problem is that unlike materials such as paper, glass and aluminum, plastics have never been recycled at a rate higher than 10 percent in the U.S. “They need to change their marketing to say that recycling is real except for plastics,” said Enck, whose organization wants to block new plastic manufacturing and plastic-burning facilities.
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.
What Does Plastic Do to the Endocrine System?
Before this plastic enters the natural ecosystem, the chemicals inside can leach out of water bottles and other food containers, entering the body and potentially endangering human health, according to a mounting body of research. In particular, plastic contains endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that could wreak havoc on certain messaging systems in the human body.
Q&A: The Latest in the Battle Over Plastic Bag Bans
A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, and eleven states as well as some territories followed suit. But some 18 other states have gone in the opposite direction and even blocked local cities and towns from prohibiting single use plastic bags. Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, spoke with Living on Earth about the battle over bag bans—and how to get them right.
America Is Replacing Its Pipes: Is Ductile Iron Pipe a Good Alternative for Plastic?
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are 240,000 water main breaks each year and over the next two decades, it’ll take about $420 billion to repair and improve the nation’s water distribution and transmission systems. In addition to aging pipes there are those that pose clear health risks: In 2021, Congress allocated $15 billion specifically for replacing lead service lines. The decision that municipalities across the country will face now is what type of pipe material they should use to replace the old ones.
Environmental Groups Eye a Potential Win with New York Packaging Bill
New York lawmakers appear poised to pass a new packaging reduction and recycling bill that would fundamentally reshape how single-use plastic waste is managed in the state. It’s meant to take a big bite out of 20 million New Yorkers’ contributions to the global plight of pollution from single-use plastics, which constitute about 40 percent of all plastic waste.
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.
Plastics Reckoning: PVC Is Ubiquitous, But Maybe Not for Long
Used in everything from water pipes to vinyl records, PVC has long attracted criticism: a key ingredient is carcinogenic, and its additives include known endocrine disruptors. Now, the EPA is evaluating PVC’s safety, and an emerging global plastics treaty may limit its use.
California Tried to Ban Plastic Grocery Bags. It Didn’t Work.
A ban on single-use bags included an exemption for bags meant to be reused and recycled. Except, they weren’t. New legislation aims to fix that.
Reduce, reuse, redirect outrage: How plastic makers used recycling as a fig leaf
The plastics industry has worked for decades to convince people and policymakers that recycling would keep waste out of landfills and the environment. Consumers sort their trash so plastic packaging can be repurposed, and local governments use taxpayer money to gather and process the material. Yet from the early days of recycling, plastic makers, including oil and gas companies, knew that it wasn't a viable solution to deal with increasing amounts of waste, according to documents uncovered by the Center for Climate Integrity.
The Plastics Industry Would Like a Word With Your Kids
School campuses are a new battleground in an increasingly bitter brawl over plastics, as groups like Vitale’s seek to improve the reputation of a material that has become infamous as an environmental menace. The efforts are partially funded by companies involved in or dependent on fossil fuel production, through donations and conference sponsorships.
Foods We Eat Are Covered in Plastics That May Be Causing a Rise in Premature Births, Study Says
Premature births are on the rise, yet experts aren’t sure why. Now, researchers have found synthetic chemicals called phthalates used in clear food packaging and personal care products could be a culprit, according to a new study.
Reduce Packaging That Contains Toxins
One thing that environmentalists and industry agree on is that bottled water is merely one packaging product in an ever-expanding ambition to package food and beverage products in plastic containers “ ‘Nanoplastics’ and health: What to know,” News, Jan. 14]. More than half of all plastics ever produced have been made since 2000.