Don't buy plastics!

Ellen & Paul Connett / Waste Not #362 Summer 1996

The Reporter for Rational Resource Management

At every step in the production of plastics, hazardous substances are used and hazardous wastes are produced. When plastics are disposed of in incinerators, more hazardous wastes are produced. If we are truly concerned about limiting our exposure to hazardous and toxic wastes, then we must take on the plastics industry. For the plastics industry is a major, if not the largest, source of the hazardous wastes entering our environment. The promise of recycling plastics keeps this hazardous waste industry alive. PVC can't be recycled economically. Many other plastics can't be recycled., and even when they can, the one sure product being recycled is hazardous waste. It has been difficult to confront the plastics issue because of several factors, some of which are listed below.

(1)   Citizens have worked hard to bring the message home on the necessity to recycle materials. It has been an extraordinarily successful campaign. Millions of Americans have responded, in an overwhelmingly positive way.

(2) I In our effort to bring the message home, the plastic industry waylaid concerns when they said they would and could recycle plastics. At that time, the fundamental question of what we were recycling was put on hold.

(3)   Greenpeace has persisted in educating us on the dangers of one plastic: PVC. They've done a great job, produced great reports, and it is generally accepted in environmental circles that we must do whatever we can to stop PVC production.

(4) SSince the successful battles against McDonald's use of Styrofoam, what major environmental group is campaigning against any other plastic?

(5)    Millions of tons of plastics are being dumped in third-world countries while the plastic industry is pumping millions of dollars into `let's feel good about plastics' ads.

(6) TThe issue of endocrine disruptors hit us all in the ecological solar plexis. We learned that many substances, that are known endocrine disrupters, are used as additions to plastics and that they leach out from them. In fact, just one of these substances, Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate “is principally used [95%] as a plasticizer in the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and vinyl chloride resins.” (Ref: Toxicological Profile for Di (2-Etheylhexyl) Phthalate, April 1993, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.]

(7) P Plastics are used for practically everything - packaging for food; furniture; construction; medical supplies; toys, etc. They have replaced many safer materials. In fact, we are losing, at an exponential rate, our ability to manufacture safe materials

(8) I in the saving of life, plastics must be used, so be it. We will not argue against really critical use; but wherever possible we must campaign for alternative materials that produce less hazardous wastes and are genuinely conservative of finite resources.

(9)     Those who work in the production of the chemicals necessary to produce plastics have been the hardest hit. They are exposed, almost unconscionably, to toxic and hazardous chemicals. Many have had their health impaired; many suffer illness and cancer; too many have died. Similarly, people who live in the communities where these chemicals and plastics are produced; who live near the incinerators and cement kilns where they are burned; who live next to hazardous waste landfills; and the firefighters who brave toxic fires, are also put at grave risk for cancers, illness and death. Shouldn't we be asking: “Are plastic food wraps, plastic packaging, plastic furniture, plastic construction materials, and plastic toys worth the cancers, illness and deaths their production, manufacture and disposal cause?”