There’s a good chance that as you’re reading this, you’ve already touched multiple items of plastic so far in your day. Perhaps you’ve brushed your teeth with a plastic toothbrush, typed an email on a plastic computer keyboard, tucked a handful of Goldfish crackers into a Ziploc bag for your child’s lunch, or donned a disposable N95 mask. Maybe you’ve joined a 5-year-old in an epic kitchen table battle between Barbie and Buzz Lightyear. Maybe you’ve put a plastic bandage on a small, scraped knee…
Even for those of us who are already trying to minimize our use of plastic, avoiding it entirely can feel nearly impossible. And while many of us are aware of the growing harms of plastic pollution and some of the frightening potential health impacts of plastic exposure, many of us don’t realize that the plastic we use in our everyday lives is made from fossil fuels—the very same fossil fuels that are causing climate change.
Plastics are the largest category of petrochemicals, which are extracted from deep in the earth to create the products we use in our everyday lives. The ubiquity of plastics and other petrochemicals comes at a steep cost to our health, especially for those living near production and processing facilities. People living near petrochemical production facilities have higher risk of numerous types of cancer, adverse birth outcomes, asthma and respiratory illness, and kidney disease. Children are especially vulnerable to harms from petrochemical pollutants.
Petrochemical production facilities are disproportionately located in poor communities and communities of color because of decades of racial discrimination in housing and financial services. In majority-Black census tracts, the estimated risk of cancer from toxic air emissions is more than twice the risk found in majority-white tracts, making petrochemical pollution a clear example of environmental racism. Unfortunately, the petrochemical industry is booming across the country, with an especially heavy presence in the Gulf Coast, and a growing number of petrochemical facilities arising in the Ohio River Valley.
For parents, awareness of the true harms of petrochemicals and plastics may be especially painful. When we’re strapped for time and money, the convenience that saves our sanity is often wrapped in single-use plastics, like single-serving granola bars and easily disposable diapers. Knowing that the plastic that’s embedded into our everyday lives is contributing to harmful pollution and climate destruction is excruciating, adding to the burden of impossible trade-offs we make every day. Holding this knowledge with compassion for ourselves is key to building the courage we need to hold petrochemicals companies accountable for creating this plastic mess.
We must hold petrochemical companies accountable and demand that EPA and other government agencies rein in toxic pollution from the production of plastics. This is a big-system problem that requires big-system action to fix. But we can also find ways to reduce our dependence on plastic in our everyday lives, such as the numerous ideas suggested in the book Things You Can Do. The plastic problem might feel overwhelming, and we are not powerless.
To learn more about petrochemicals and our health, and how you can take action on this important issue, please read our new fact sheet, PETROCHEMICAL POLLUTION AND OUR HEALTH.
Moms Clean Air Force is grateful to Cynthia Palmer for her research and writing on the petrochemical crisis.
Tell Congress: Support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act