“Make America Healthy Again” has conveniently dropped the importance of how toxic plastics are threatening the health of Americans. Plastics are everywhere, and the chemicals associated with plastics are also everywhere. The environment has more than 16,000 chemicals associated with plastics and at least 4,200 are known to be hazardous to human health and the environment. Plastic pollution already costs Americans an estimated $249 billion annually in health-related expenses. (Source Greenpeace USA.)
U.S. food packaging laws only cover a small fraction of what is actually used in the products on the market today. Industry profits have soared on plastics while over half of plastics lack hazard or function protection. Microplastics have been found in every ecosystem on the planet, from the Antarctic tundra to tropical coral reefs, and microplastics have been found in food, beverages, human and animal tissue. (Source: EPA.)
Carcinogenic chemicals found in plastic products can seep into tap water, which may cause developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune disorders, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Plastics are one of the most pervasive and under-regulated toxic threats Americans face today, and if politicians do not stand up to the corporations that make plastics, Americans will continue to get sick and die from preventable causes.
Take heed, Americans. Don’t allow plastics to poison America.
Lois Eisenberg
Valencia
