Environment

This report outlines the significant burdens that plastic pollution imposes on state and municipal systems, which bear the financial, environmental, and health costs of managing these effects. It also provides a comprehensive roadmap for legal professionals and government officials to initiate litigation against those responsible for the proliferation of plastic waste.

The pollution resulting from rampant overproduction of virgin plastics is irreversible, directly undermines our health, drives biodiversity loss, exacerbates climate change and risks generating large-scale harmful environmental changes. As the plastics pollution crisis continues to grow, so does the case for a global plastics treaty that tackles the issue head-on and seeks to reduce the production of virgin plastics.

This study of children’s products from 26 countries revealed that toxic flame-retardant chemicals in recycled electronic waste results in pervasive contamination of new plastic children’s toys and related products. Recycling materials that contain persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and other toxic substances contaminates new products, creates human and environmental exposure, and undermines the credibility of recycling.

The report, with three case studies of river ecosystems in Vietnam, Canada, and Australia, reviews the significant harmful effects on fisheries from toxic chemicals and demonstrates that chemicals and other pollutants worsen the productivity-degrading effect of overfishing. The report notes the triple planetary crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and chemical pollution.

The case studies reveal that countries are unable to handle large volumes of diverse plastics waste streams safely, and the reality that, without regulations requiring plastic ingredients to be labeled, countries are blindly allowing known toxic chemicals onto their markets in plastic products.

The report reveals how Australia’s new waste policies are driving massive investment in plastic waste-to-fuel processing, and that the country’s exports are threatening waste management in ASEAN countries. This is despite the country announcing it would stop exporting unprocessed wastes in 2020, after China and other Southeast Asian countries banned plastic waste imports.

A new report from Alaska Community Action on Toxics and IPEN finds that chemicals, plastics, and climate change are interrelated and threaten Arctic Peoples and lands. These forces have combined to poison lands, waters, and traditional foods of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, with ongoing health effects that threaten their cultures and communities.

Research from IPEN and BAN reveals dire human exposure and food chain contamination from highly toxic plastics in waste in Ghana, including toxic recycled e-waste shipped from Europe.

Report on the toxic threats from waste incinerator ash that, which is generated at a rate of millions of tons every year includes analysis of global scale of toxic ash and other residues from waste incineration contain dioxins, furans (PCDD/Fs) and a range of other highly toxic POPs at levels which are a threat to human health and the environment.

The toxic industrial chemical short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) are primarily used in metalworking, but also used in plastic products as flame retardants and softeners. A survey of children’s products in 10 countries reveals widespread contamination with SCCPs.