"Negotiations over the first legally binding UN treaty on plastic pollution collapsed in the final stage of discussions, after oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia blocked efforts by 100 countries to place limits on new production."
"Plastics can contain thousands of different chemicals, many of them linked to cancer and reproductive harm, and many never tested for safety. Multiple studies are now finding these chemicals, along with microplastics, throughout the human body, raising alarm among scientists about widespread health effects, including reduced fertility and increased obesity."
"Many nations hope to reduce the half a billion tons of plastic made each year. But pushback from plastic and oil producers, and Donald Trump’s election, could scuttle an agreement."
"Oil and chemical companies who created a high-profile alliance to end plastic pollution have produced 1,000 times more new plastic in five years than the waste they diverted from the environment, according to new data obtained by Greenpeace."
"The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be doing more to help address potential climate change-related risks to hundreds of hazardous waste facilities across the country, according to a recent government watchdog report."
"The Biden administration has backtracked from supporting a cap on plastic production as part of the United Nations’ global plastics treaty."
"Food and cosmetics from dozens of major retailers come wrapped in potentially dangerous plastics, a new report has found."
"India promised to burn its trash mountains and safely turn them into electricity. But a New York Times investigation found hazardous levels of toxic substances around homes, playgrounds and schools."
"Los Angeles County has filed suit against the world’s largest beverage companies — Coca-Cola and Pepsi — claiming the soda and drink makers lied to the public about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and, as a result, left county residents and ecosystems choking in discarded plastic."
When Illinois downplayed the results of long-delayed PFAS testing in the state’s public water supply, Chicago Tribune reporter Michael Hawthorne revisited a story he had first covered two decades before. His investigation uncovered dangerous practices threatening public health, won him accolades and moved the needle on state policy. How he went about it, in the new Inside Story Q&A.
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