Parley AIR Social Justice: Plastics production and Frontline Communities
Plastics plants are concentrated in one part of the country and disproportionately impact poor and BIPOC communities
Welcome to the third installment of our Social Justice and Plastics AIR Guide series. So far, we’ve covered how ocean currents carry plastic pollution from the countries that create it to a select few communities that are forced to live amongst it. We also got into how wealthy nations export their plastic trash to nations in the Global South, and the ways this ineffective recycling system creates racial, ethnic and gender inequity.
In part 3 of our series, we’re zooming in on one country — the one that produces more plastic trash than anywhere else in the world — and the social inequities created by new plastics production. The United States is a stark case study for how plastics production, which uses mostly fracked oil to create the virgin plastics used in everyday life around the world, has a concentrated impact on specific communities.
It’s an impact that many of us never see.
Plastics plants poison local water and air in mostly low-income and BIPOC communities. They often move in without residents knowing, or are welcomed as a beacon of hope in areas desperate for jobs. In these cases, people are often misinformed of the damage these plants will cause to their communities. New plastics plants are continuously planned in the same three hotspots: Pennsylvania’s Appalachia, the Gulf Coast of Texas, and Cancer Alley in Louisiana. But in recent years, grassroots efforts in these neighborhoods, towns and parishes have halted industry expansion in incredible ways.
This month, we’re delving into the toxic legacy plastic creation leaves in low-income and BIPOC communities in the U.S. and celebrating the ongoing work of Sharon Lavigne, who has already played a key role in stopping additional plastics projects from being built in her parish.
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Creating new demand for oil
While the fracking boom in the U.S. has garnered loads of attention for its own pollution, the industry is also quietly feeding plans for hundreds of new plastics and petrochemical plants. As traditional uses for fossil fuels are being replaced by renewable energy, companies like Exxon, Shell and Chevron are looking to new plastic production plants to keep their business afloat in the near future. That’s because more than 99% of plastics are made from oil.
About 6 percent of the world’s oil and gas currently goes to creating plastic. But fossil fuel companies are hedging bets that plastic will soon prop up the industry. The International Energy Agency expects plastics and other petrochemical products — like fertilizer, synthetic rubber and antifreeze — to drive one-third of the world’s oil and gas demand in the next decade, and a full half by 2050. This demand would completely offset any progress made by falling demand for gas used in transportation.
According to a 2020 report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, BP expects the plastics industry to account for 95 percent of its net growth in demand for oil between 2020 and 2040. And it’s not alone. As a growing demand for renewable energy decreases demand for oil and gas, executives see fanning plastic production as the most viable way to keep fossil fuel companies afloat.
Poisonous plastic production
Despite oil companies pushing for new plastic demand, the U.S. is already producing more plastic than needed. According to Wood Mackenzie, demand for polyethylene in the U.S. has only risen by about 10% over the past 5 years, but the amount plants in the U.S. can produce has increased by nearly 30%. The trend can be applied globally. Between last year and 2025, experts expect the amount of polyethylene being created worldwide to increase by about 23%, 5% more than demand.
These plants release hundreds of chemicals into the air, water and soil of Fenceline Communities — the people who are forced to have them as neighbors, usually with no say in the matter. These chemicals include known carcinogens, lead, chemicals that cause reproductive issues, as well as a slew of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like ethylene, propylene, which cause visible air pollution.
In the U.S. and around the world, this plastic production overwhelmingly takes place in low-income and BIPOC communities. The human toll is out of sight for the corporations doing the damage. And they’re pushing for more.
A 2021 report by Bennington College and Beyond Plastics found that the U.S.’s ability to manufacture ethylene, the oil-based building block of plastic, has grown by almost 70% in the past 15 years. In the U.S. alone, corporations produce 45 million tons of ethylene a year in plants called ethane crackers. Most of these facilities have been built on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, where fenceline communities share their air, water and land with petrochemical complexes. In recent years, these companies have been fined for pollution, but not forced to stop. Now they have their sights set on Appalachia, a part of the country already polluted by fracking.
CANCER ALLEY, USA
Reference: In a Notoriously Polluted Area of the Country, Massive New Chemical Plants Are Still Moving In, ProPublica
One of the starkest examples of the social injustices of plastics production is an 87-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, an area nicknamed Cancer Alley. More than 150 petrochemical plants pollute the air and water in this section of the American South, where residents are diagnosed with cancer at 50 times the U.S. average. Twelve of the plastics plants in Cancer Alley are in just one area: the majority Black and low-income community of St. James Parish.
The region has some of the highest concentrations of toxic chemicals in the air and water of anywhere in the U.S. Luckily, residents have organized, pushed back, and won the fight against new plastics plants in the area. Here’s their story, and how one woman led a push that stopped a Chinese plastics company from building their new plant in Cancer Alley.
Sharon Lavigne / Image: RISE St. James
Standing up to big plastic
Sharon Lavigne has lived in St. James Parish, Louisiana for her entire life. She’s watched industry move in and shift the way of life from a place with healthy water and soil that produced enough food to feed the town, to a place so polluted its nickname is Cancer Alley.
Lavigne spent her career as a teacher and retired to become an activist full time when a Chinese chemical company called Wanhua proposed a plastic plant near her home in St. James.
In 2018, she founded the local environmental justice group RISE St. James. Last year, Lavigne and RISE St. James won the Goldman Environmental Prize.
So far, they have helped block Wanhua’s $1.25 billion plastics manufacturing facility from being built in St. James. The plant would have generated a million pounds of liquid hazardous waste annually, amplifying health issues in a place that is already saturated with known carcinogens and toxic air pollution. The known pollutants in the liquid waste Wanhua’s plant would produce include hundreds of tons of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), which has been shown to cause tumors in rats and is recognized by the EPA to cause lung damage in humans.
The plant would have also generated carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), formaldehyde and benzene, which can damage bone marrow and reduce the number of red blood cells.
RISE St. James is now heavily involved in an ongoing fight to block Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese company that mainly manufactures polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resins. Formosa is a gigantic company with plants all over the world. Now, it’s planning a $9.4 billion plastics manufacturing complex just a mile from Lavigne’s house. They’re calling it the Sunshine Project.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights has called the project environmental racism.
But in November 2020, Lavigne and RISE St. James had another huge win. The Army Corps of Engineers suspended Formosa’s permit for the project. The Corps ruling came after a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, RISE St. James, Healthy Gulf and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. There was even more strength in numbers: another 20 organizations and thousands of individual people then asked the Corps to put the project on hold while it reevaluated its impact.
Individuals like Lavigne do make a difference in the fight against plastic and the social injustices it perpetuates. Hear Lavigne’s story in her own words and what she has in store next.
Industry lines the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans / Image: Jim Bowen via Flickr
TAKE ACTION
Read up, make noise, spread the word and give others the tools to do the same. Systemic change won’t come unless we demand it.
Join RISE St. James in the fight against Formosa Plastics. Get loud. Share this story on social media. Tell your friends. Send a letter to President Biden.
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