Think that your #plastic is being recycled? Think again.
Plastic is cheap to make and shockingly profitable. It’s everywhere. And we’re all paying the price.
By Douglas Main
October 12, 2023
"#PlasticPollution—'a scourge on a planetary scale,' as French president Emmanuel Macron has put it—most affects those least able to deal with its consequences. Noting that the #PlasticIndustry generates upward of $700 billion a year in revenues, the UN Environment Programme (#UNEP) also concluded that the industry 'inflicts a heavy burden on #HumanHealth and #EnvironmentalDegradation, with the poorest in society facing the highest impacts whilst contributing the least to plastic over-consumption and waste.'
"This is true at every stage of plastic’s life cycle. #Manufacturing plants are concentrated in communities of color—such as in #Louisiana, in an area along the #MississippiRiver often called '#CancerAlley,' which is home to nearly 150 #OilRefineries, plastics plants, and #chemical facilities. Such plants emit #AirPollution that raises risks of cancer and other diseases. A panel of UN human rights experts said the situation amounts to a 'form of environmental racism [that] poses serious and disproportionate threats to the ... human rights of its largely #AfricanAmerican residents.'
"This pollution also disproportionately harms poor and developing countries that produce little or no plastic, such as those in #Africa, the #Pacific, and elsewhere."
