February, 18 2019, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Amanda Kistler, Communications Director, CIEL: +1.202.742.5832, akistler@ciel.org
New Report Reveals Plastic Threatens Human Health on a Global Scale
WASHINGTON
A new report released today reveals that plastic is a human health crisis hiding in plain sight. Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, authored by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Earthworks, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF), IPEN, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.), University of Exeter, and UPSTREAM, brings together research that exposes the distinct toxic risks plastic poses to human health at every stage of the plastic lifecycle, from extraction of fossil fuels, to consumer use, to disposal and beyond.
To date, research into the human health impacts of plastic have focused narrowly on specific moments in the plastic lifecycle, often on single products, processes, or exposure pathways. This approach fails to recognize that significant, complex, and intersecting human health impacts occur at every stage of the plastic lifecycle: from wellhead to refinery, from store shelves to human bodies, and from waste management to ongoing impacts of microplastics in the air, water, and soil. Plastic & Health presents the full panorama of human health impacts of plastic and counsels that any solution to the plastic crisis must address the full lifecycle.
According to the report, uncertainties and knowledge gaps often impede regulation and the ability of consumers, communities, and policymakers to make informed decisions. However, the full scale of health impacts throughout plastic's lifecycle are overwhelming and warrant a precautionary approach.
KEY FINDINGS
Plastic requires a lifecycle approach. The narrow approaches to assessing and addressing plastic impacts to date are inadequate and inappropriate. Making informed decisions that address plastic risks demands a full lifecycle approach to understand the full scope of its toxic impacts on human health. Likewise, reducing toxic exposure to plastic will require a variety of solutions and options because plastic has a complex lifecycle with a diverse universe of actors.
At every stage of its lifecycle, plastic poses distinct risks to human health, arising from both exposure to plastic particles themselves and associated chemicals. People worldwide are exposed at multiple stages of this lifecycle.
- Extraction and transportation of fossil feedstocks for plastic, which releases an array of toxic substances into the air and water, including those with known health impacts like cancer, neurotoxicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and impairment of the immune system;
- Refining and production of plastic resins and additives, which releases carcinogenic and other highly toxic substances into the air, with effects including impairment of the nervous system, reproductive and developmental problems, cancer, leukemia, and genetic impacts like low birth weight;
- Consumer products and packaging, which can lead to ingestion and/or inhalation of microplastic particles and hundreds of toxic substances;
- Plastic waste management, especially "waste-to-energy" and other forms of incineration, releases toxic substances including heavy metals such as lead and mercury, acid gases and particulate matter, which can enter air, water, and soil causing both direct and indirect health risks for workers and nearby communities;
- Fragmenting and microplastics, which enter the human body directly and lead to an array of health impacts (including inflammation, genotoxicity, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and necrosis) that are linked to negative health outcomes ranging from cardiovascular disease to cancer and autoimmune conditions;
- Cascading exposure as plastic degrades, which further leach toxic chemicals concentrated in plastic into the environment and human bodies; and
- Ongoing environmental exposures as plastic contaminates and accumulates in food chains through agricultural soils, terrestrial and aquatic food chains, and the water supply, creating new opportunities for human exposure.
FROM THE AUTHORS
David Azoulay, Director of Environmental Health, CIEL
"From wellhead to refinery, and from kitchen shelves to water supplies, this report reveals how plastic poses toxic risks at every stage of its lifecycle. There is no silver bullet to solve this health crisis, but all solutions must ultimately reduce the production and use of plastic if they are serious about protecting human health.
"Both the supply chains and the impacts of plastic cross and re-cross borders, continents, and oceans. No country can effectively protect its citizens from those impacts on its own, and no global instrument exists today to fully address the toxic lifecycle of plastics. Countries must seize the opportunity of current global discussions to develop a holistic response to the plastic health crisis that involves reducing the production, use, and disposal of plastic worldwide."
Priscilla Villa, Earthworks
"Plastics poison people before they're ever used because they're produced at polluting petrochemical plants. And those plastics are made from fracking byproducts. This is a problem because oil and gas extraction and transport releases carcinogens like benzene. Any solution to our plastics problem must prioritize people's health ahead of Big Oil's profits."
Doun Moon, Research Associate, GAIA
"Plastic waste does not only pollute our oceans. Burning plastic in incinerators turns one form of pollution into another, whether it be air emissions, toxic ash, or wastewater. People living nearby incinerators are primarily low income communities and people of color, and bear the brunt of this toxic pollution. We can't burn our plastic problem away, leaving certain communities to suffer the consequences. We desperately need to turn off the plastic tap and build a more just and equitable society in the process."
Dr. Mariann Lloyd-Smith, Senior Policy Advisor, IPEN
"The twin crises of chemical and plastics pollution are decimating our oceans and its inhabitants. Plastics are not just unsightly litter, they are made with many toxic ingredients and collect many more persistent poisons over their incredibly long life time. Microplastics provide a pathway for hazardous chemicals into the marine foodchain on which humans depend. We can't dump, burn, or recycle our way out of this problem; it's time for industry and governments to turn off this toxic tap and for all of us to make deep changes in the way we live."
Lauren Moore, UPSTREAM
"What's toxic for the planet is just as toxic for human health. Why risk exposing our bodies to the thousands of chemicals found in plastic packaging when we have reusable options that do not pollute our health or the environment? When it comes to the safety of our families and our planet, reuse wins every time."
Von Hernandez, Global Coordinator, Break Free From Plastic Movement (BFFP)
"The heavy toxic burdens associated with plastic - at every stage of its life cycle - offers another convincing argument why reducing and not increasing production of plastics is the only way forward. It is shocking how the existing regulatory regime continues to give the whole plastic industrial complex, the license to play Russian roulette with our lives and our health. Plastic is lethal, and this report shows us why."
WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING ABOUT PLASTIC & HEALTH:
Ruthann Rudel, Director of Research, Silent Spring Institute
"Plastics are made of a complex mix of chemicals, many of them are endocrine disruptors or are of concern for other health effects. A recent National Academy of Sciences report found that the important vinyl ingredient DEHP is "a presumed hazard to human reproduction" at current exposures, and that's just one plastics ingredient! Plastics also contain many toxic additives, such as flame retardants, metals, anti-microbials, non-stick coatings, and more. The fantasy that plastics are an inexpensive material is just that - a fantasy that fails to acknowledge the tremendous costs we all pay."
Erica Jackson, Community Outreach & Communications Specialist, FracTracker Alliance
"The pervasiveness of plastic is a problem that spans space and time- it's all around us and it lasts for centuries. Therefore, the importance of this assessment of plastic's cumulative health impact cannot be understated. We know enough to justify taking immediate action to reduce our dependence on plastic, and that starts by keeping plastic feedstocks - oil and gas - in the ground."
Graham Forbes, Greenpeace Global Plastics Project Leader
"The health risks of the plastic pollution crisis have been ignored for far too long, and must be at the forefront of all decisions on plastics moving forward. Corporations and governments are risking our health to maintain the status quo and keep profits flowing. It's not just our oceans and marine animals that are suffering from this addiction to plastics, it's all of us. While there is still much to learn about all of the impacts of plastics on human health, we know enough to adopt a precautionary principle and start to phase out these throwaway plastics for good."
Mike Schade, Mind the Store Campaign Director, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
"The plastics industry is polluting the planet with poisonous chemicals like phthalates and halogenated flame retardants, which are commonly found in products like food packaging and electronics. Even babies are being born pre-polluted with these unnecessary dangerous chemicals. At a time when we are learning more about the dangers of chemicals such as these in plastics, the US federal government is rolling back critical environmental and public health safeguards. Big retailers must step up to drive toxic chemicals out of plastics and act swiftly to phase out the worst plastics of concern like PVC, the poison plastic."
Julie Teel Simmonds, Senior Attorney, Center for Biological Diversity
"It is alarming that the fossil fuel industry plans to increase plastic production by 40 percent over the next decade. Making plastic pollutes communities, and plastic trash is filling our oceans. It is clear that curbing plastic pollution and protecting public health cannot be achieved without curbing plastic production."
Stiv Wilson, Campaigns Director, Story of Stuff Project
"For years the petrochemical industry has ignored the upstream human health impacts in the extraction and refining process. Instead, they've chosen to frame the human health question narrowly, after plastic gets to the ocean where the science is a bit less smoking gun. Finally, we have a baseline for understanding the whole pollution matrix that surrounds this ubiquitous material called plastic."
ABOUT THE AUTHORING ORGANIZATIONS:
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) uses the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. CIEL seeks a world where the law reflects the interconnection between humans and the environment, respects the limits of the planet, protects the dignity and equality of each person, and encourages all of earth's inhabitants to live in balance with each other.
Earthworks is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the adverse impacts of mineral and energy development while promoting sustainable solutions.
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) is a worldwide alliance of more than 800 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries whose ultimate vision is a just, toxic-free world without incineration.
Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) is an alliance of nonprofit organizations, scientists and donors that designs and implements outcomes-based programs to measurably reduce babies' exposures to toxic chemicals in the first 1,000 days of development. HBBF brings together the strongest and latest science, data analysis, critical thinking, performance measurement, campaign talent, communications skills and commitment to collaboration.
IPEN brings together leading public interest groups working on environmental and public health issues in over 100 countries to take action internationally to minimize and, whenever possible, eliminate hazardous, toxic chemicals.
Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.) is dedicated to providing community members with the tools necessary to create sustainable, environmentally healthy communities by educating individuals on health concerns and implications arising from environmental pollution, empowering individuals with an understanding of applicable environmental laws and regulations and promoting their enforcement, and offering community building skills and resources for effective community action and greater public participation.
UPSTREAM sparks innovative solutions to plastic pollution and brings people together to transform our throw-away society to a culture of stewardship. UPSTREAM envisions a world without plastic pollution and empowers business, community, and people to imagine and co-create this future with us.
Read the full report here.
Read the executive summary here.
Find this press release online here.
Since 1989, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has worked to strengthen and use international law and institutions to protect the environment, promote human health, and ensure a just and sustainable society.
LATEST NEWS
On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified a social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular