"The plastics contaminating every corner of the Earth contain thousands of unregulated toxic chemicals. As global plastic talks end without a treaty, health experts say negotiators must consider their toxic cargo."
"So much plastic waste ends up in dumps around the world that millions of people, mostly in poor countries, make their living as “waste pickers,” sifting through mountains of trash, looking for recyclable materials to sell.
Not surprisingly, waste pickers, who work alongside burning garbage with no protective gear, are highly exposed to toxic chemicals in plastics, according to a new report assessing differences in chemical exposures between people who handle plastic and those who work in offices.
Plastics are made from more than 16,000 chemicals, most of them sourced from fossil fuels, thousands known to be hazardous, others not yet studied, the vast majority unregulated.
Environmental and health groups have long urged negotiators working on a U.N. treaty to end plastic pollution to stop using toxic chemicals in plastic. Negotiations in Geneva ended Friday without reaching an agreement during what were supposed to be the final talks, largely because oil- and plastic-producing countries, including the United States, opposed the limits on plastic production that close to 100 nations say are desperately needed. To highlight how hazardous chemicals in plastic pervade daily life, the International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN, repeated an exposure experiment it launched last year, during the previous round of treaty negotiations in South Korea."
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