American Chemistry Council

February 16, 2024

Plastics industry engaged in 50 years of fraud over recycling, report alleges

By Dana Drugmand

Plastics makers and petrochemical industry players have engaged in a decades-long fraud aimed at deceiving the public about plastic recycling, according to a new report that spotlights freshly uncovered industry communications and internal documents.

The report comes as the global plastic waste crisis deepens, and as environmental advocacy organizations are increasingly calling for major fossil fuel and petrochemical companies to be held responsible for plastic pollution that poses a threat to human and planetary health.

“Despite their long-standing knowledge that recycling plastic is neither technically nor economically viable, petrochemical companies—independently and through their industry trade associations and front groups—have engaged in fraudulent marketing and public education campaigns designed to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling,” asserts the new report, released by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) on Thursday.

In detailing the plastics industry’s campaign of deception that dates back more than 50 years, the report reveals how the industry deployed a familiar strategic playbook to push back on threats of regulation by promoting a misleading narrative and false claims pertaining to plastics and recycling, despite knowing all along that plastics’ recyclability was more of a public relations message than an effective solution to the waste management problem.

“This evidence shows that many of the same fossil fuel companies that knew and lied for decades about how their products cause climate change have also known and lied to the public about plastic recycling,” CCI President Richard Wiles said in a statement. “When corporations and trade groups know that their products pose grave risks to society, and then lie to the public and policymakers about it, they must be held accountable.”

November 8, 2023

PFAS industry spent over $110 million on recent lobbying, report finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Chemical industry advocates have spent more than $110 million in recent years on lobbying efforts that included opposing laws designed to reduce the use of, and exposure to, a group of toxic chemicals known as PFAS, according to a new study.

Lobbying expenditures from 2019 to 2022 undermined toxic chemicals legislation that would impact industries that make and use per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to Food & Water Watch, which published the report on Tuesday. During that period, only four of more than 130 bills introduced by Congress to help clean up PFAS became law.

“There’s a whole disproportionate amount of money being spent by the opposing side to try to avoid any kind of meaningful action,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director of Food & Water Watch. “If we want to stop the production and the contamination from PFAS, even before we get into the cleanup part of it, we really need some comprehensive legislation. I think this report shows what’s standing in the way.”

PFAS, also called “forever chemicals,” do not break down naturally and are found in about 83% of US waterways, according to a 2022 analysis. About 97% of Americans have PFAS in their blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Exposure to the chemicals has been linked to numerous health problems, including thyroid, kidney, and testicular cancer, as well as ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, and hypertension during pregnancy. Last March, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced proposed drinking water standards for six PFAS chemicals.

The companies 3M, DuPont, and others agreed to settlements over the summer that will provide communities with billions of dollars to test for PFAS and remove them from drinking water.

To investigate how much money is potentially being used to fight PFAS legislation, researchers dug into a database of lobbying disclosure forms made available by the US House of Representatives. The team focused on six top PFAS manufacturers, the companies 3M, Archroma, Chemours, Daikin, Honeywell, and Solvay, as well as Dow and DuPont, which historically made or used PFAS, and the American Chemistry Council (ACC).

The PFAS companies paid 28 lobbyists to fight a 2019 bill that would have designated two major types of PFAS as hazardous substances under the Superfund program, the report found. The PFAS Action Act passed the House but was killed by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, where a majority of current committee members accepted campaign contributions from PFAS manufacturers or the ACC, the report found. The committee’s Democratic majority received about $70,000 from top chemical companies from 2019 to 2022, while the Republican minority received nearly $400,000, according to the report.

January 19, 2023

Updated approach to regulating chemicals is “urgently needed,” say scientists

By Grace van Deelen

The US regulatory system for chemicals is not adequately protecting human health, and an overhaul is urgently needed, according to recommendations made this week by a group of environmental and health scientists.

In a paper published Thursday in Environmental Science and Technology, the group of 12 researchers criticized the nation’s chemical regulatory system for operating in ways that allow farmers, consumers and others to be exposed to unsafe chemicals on a regular basis.

Adoption of a new, “essential-use” approach is required, the researchers said. The framework proposed asks governments and businesses to assess chemicals using one of three possible questions: 1) “Is the function of the chemical necessary for the product?” 2) “Is the use of the chemical the safest feasible option?” and 3) “Is use of the chemical in the product justified because such use is necessary for health, safety, or the functioning of society?”

Current laws and practices employed by the US Environmental Protection Agency essentially require that a chemical must be proven unsafe to be barred from the market. The proposed system would flip that on its head, similar to the theory of the “precautionary principle,” which considers that a product should be proven safe to be approved.

“The current system of managing chemicals is broken,” said Carol Kwiatkowski, an author of the paper and a senior scientist at the Green Science Policy Institute, an environmental health advocacy group. “The essential-use approach is the first feasible solution that will actually protect people and the environment before extensive damage is done.”

Co-authors include researchers from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the University of Massachusetts, the University of Toronto, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group.

More than 350 000 chemicals and mixtures of chemicals have been registered for production and use, according to a global review published in 2020. Environmental health advocates say not enough is known about the possible adverse effects these chemicals are having on the environment and human health. Many are clearly dangerous for humans exposed to them, including certain types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Some chemicals on the market in the US have been shown to disrupt hormones and impact reproductive health, cause cancers and other diseases and interfere with neurological development, among other harms.

May 12, 2022

California’s fight over cancer-causing drinking water contaminant

Bertha Magana has lived in the same house in rural Monterey County, California since 1987; it’s where she and her husband raised their four children, and the place they enjoy visits from their 11 grandchildren. Recently, however, 61-year-old Magana learned that the well from which the family gets its drinking water is contaminated with an industrial compound known to cause cancer. Her family is healthy, but Magana is now plagued with the constant worry that comes with knowing her water is unsafe.

“I am very worried,” Magana said in a recent interview, translated from Spanish by an interpreter.

May 11, 2022

Guest column: California’s legacy of contaminated drinking water

By Erin Brockovich