Tag Archives: plastics

Groups Challenge Louisiana Permits for Formosa Plastics’ Giant Petrochemical Complex in Cancer Alley

“The fight against Formosa’s polluting and unjust petrochemical complex is part of a growing national movement to address the triple threat of climate chaos, plastics pollution, and environmental racism.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-14-2020

Local and national organizations are fighting against a proposed petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, Louisiana. (Photo: Louisiana Bucket Brigade/Twitter)

A coalition of local and national groups on Friday launched a legal challenge to a Louisiana state agency’s decision to approve air permits for a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex that Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group plans to build in the region nationally known as “Cancer Alley.”

Louisiana residents and environmental justice advocates have pressured local, state, and federal officials to reject permits for the proposed project in St. James Parish. Critics have raised concerns that the complex would adversely affect public health and the environment by emitting cancer-causing chemicals and producing an estimated 13.6 million tons of planet-heating emissions annually. Continue reading

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German Study: Alarming Levels of Dangerous Plastics in Children’s Bodies

Children from poorer families had more plastic residue in their bodies than those from higher-income homes.

By Common Dreams. Published 9-14-2019

In urine samples, residues of various plastic ingredients were found in 97 to 100 percent of the children examined. Researchers said that they were especially concerned about high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) that were found. Photo: Hong Zhang/Pixabay

Plastic by-products were found in an alarming 97-100% of blood and urine samples from 2,500 children tested between 2014 and 2017, according to a new study by the German Environment Ministry and the Robert Koch Institute.

Der Spiegel, the German weekly magazine, published the findings Saturday, which were part of a federal study focused on “human biomonitoring” of 3 to 17-year-olds. Traces from 11 out of 15 plastic ingredients were found in the test samples. Continue reading

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Oil Giants Invest $180B in Plastics, Propelling Oceans Toward ‘Near-Permanent’ Pollution

“We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 12-26-2017

A seal trapped in plastic pollution. Environmental advocates are concerned that a rise in plastics production will bring the world’s oceans to a state of “near-permanent” pollution. (Photo: Nels Israelson/Flickr/cc)

Scientists and environmental protection advocates are warning that a coming plastics boom could lead to a permanent state of pollution on the planet—and denouncing the fossil fuel industry for driving an increase in plastics production amid all that’s known about the material polluting the world’s oceans.

“We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realizing we should use far less of it,” Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law (CEIL), told the Guardian. The CEIL has compiled several reports about the plastics industry since September. Continue reading

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