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Trump’s Embrace of Plastic Straws Won’t Make America Healthy Again
The harmful effects of plastics on human health should be a primary concern for any administration that claims to value human life.
Feb 12, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which reverses the push for paper straws in favor of plastic ones—based on the claim that paper straws don’t work (which, by the way, isn’t true)—is about way more than just straws. It is designed to undercut the Biden administration’s 2022 initiative to phase out single-use plastics, including straws, containers, and bottles, from federal buildings by 2032.
While the administration’s EO focus might seem to be shining a light on a seemingly trivial issue, it is a symptom of a much larger, and much more alarming problem: plastic pollution and its impact on all of us. Plastic is a human health crisis in the making and this decision is more than absurd—it’s actually dangerous.
Firstly, while banning plastic straws specifically is not all about saving turtles and trashing the ocean—we are in fact by using them helping to trash the oceans.
This decision to roll back a policy aimed at reducing plastic waste isn’t just a misguided nod to convenience—it’s a big win for Big Oil.
Plastics have become a pervasive pollutant with 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped in our oceans every single year, killing marine life, including whales and seabirds at an alarming rate. One million sea turtles alone die every year from ingesting plastic trash. That represents 10% of the entire global population.
Researchers estimate there are around 199 million tonnes of plastic contaminating our marine environment already, and every year we do not take action and instead back plastic, that number rises.
Much of this largely single-use plastic, like straws, eventually breaks down into microplastics, smaller than a grain of rice. So, when we eat fish, we are consuming all the plastic junk and chemicals they have been ingesting too.
Which might help to explain why scientists have found plastic particles in human brains, lungs, hearts, and even placentas. We are poisoning our own babies with plastics, even before they are born.
These microplastics are harmful in their own right but, they also leach out toxic plastic chemicals, like Bisphenol A and phthalates, both known endocrine disruptors. Exposure to these chemicals in early development can have lifelong effects on a child's health, from developmental delays to ADHD, autism, and increased risks of certain cancers. These chemicals are even linked to miscarriages and infertility.
We already know that babies and infants appear to be ingesting high levels of microplastics because a study by scientists from Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland discovered they had over 10 times higher rates of microplastics in their feces samples than adults.
From the moment we wake up to the time we go to sleep, we are being exposed to microplastics—whether through the food we eat, the water we drink, or the air we breathe.
The harmful effects of plastics on human health should be a primary concern for any administration that claims to value human life. So, the president’s focus on supporting plastic straws is worryingly indicative of a disregard for the growing scientific consensus on the dangers of microplastics and the chemicals used to make plastics in general.
This decision to roll back a policy aimed at reducing plastic waste isn’t just a misguided nod to convenience—it’s a big win for Big Oil. Why? Because plastics are made from petrochemicals, this order therefore supports the fossil fuel industry. An industry already wreaking havoc on our planet by fueling climate change.
If we are serious about safeguarding human health, we must shift away from our throwaway plastic culture that has dominated our society for decades. The impacts of plastic pollution on our health, and our babies’ too, are far-reaching and catastrophic. It's time for our leaders to prioritize the health of people, not the interests of the plastic industry.
As the debate over plastic straws continues, which it will, we need to refocus the conversation on the real, life-threatening dangers posed by plastic pollution. It is time to recognize that this is not a fight over a straw—it is a fight for children’s health.
Which is why EARTHDAY.ORG is running an End Plastic Initiatives—so we can continue to drive public support around making a stand against plastic pollution and in the process protect our planet—and more importantly our health—for generations to come. The fight continues. Plastic is Toxic. DON’T GO BACK TO PLASTICS!
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'Long-Overdue' Trial to Begin After Decades of Shell Polluting Nigeria
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," said one Nigerian plaintiff. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing."
Feb 10, 2025
After years of delay tactics, Shell is set to go on trial in London this week over claims that hundreds of spills caused by the fossil fuel giant have destroyed Nigerian communities and violated their residents' rights to a clean and healthy environment.
Critics say Shell has managed to avoid accountability for despoiling the environment in and around Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger Delta. Ten years ago, residents of these communities sued Shell, claiming inhabitants' livelihoods, homes, and environment had been devastated by Shell oil spills, which killed fish and vegetation and left thousands of people without access to clean drinking water.
As Bille and Ogale communities attempted to fight London-based Shell in U.K. courts, the company repeatedly delayed the case, claiming it was not legally liable for the pollution caused by its subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. However, in 2021 the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that the High Court should hear the case, and last December, the country's Court of Appeals allowed it to be heard.
"The Bille and Ogale communities of Nigeria's Niger Delta oil-producing region have been living with the devastating impact of oil pollution for so long," Amnesty International Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said in a statement Monday. "Oil companies, particularly Shell, exposed them to multiple oil spills that have done permanent damage to farmlands, waterways, and drinking water—leaving them unable to farm or fish."
Ten years ago, residents from the Bille and Ogale communities in Nigeria claimed their livelihoods had been destroyed by hundreds of oil spills caused by Shell. The pollution caused widespread devastation to the local environment and left thousands without access to clean drinking water.
— Amnesty International (@amnesty.org) February 10, 2025 at 4:00 AM
"Water contamination and other impacts affect even babies that are in some cases born with deformities," Sanusi added. "These communities have been deprived of a good standard of living. They deserve justice and effective remediation, and I hope this long-overdue trial goes someway to providing it."
In 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in a separate but related case that it was too late for Nigerian plaintiffs to sue a pair of Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 spill of an estimated 40,000 barrels of oil.
Amnesty International has called the Niger Delta "one of the most polluted places on Earth."
Accountability has been rare, but in 2021 Shell agreed to pay $111 million for oil spills in the Niger Delta. This, in a year in which the company reported adjusted 2020 earnings of nearly $5 billion.
Last December, Nigeria's Ministry of Petroleum Resources approved Shell's sale of $2.4 billion in offshore and shallow-water assets to Renaissance Group, a Nigerian firm, marking the end of nearly a century of Shell's operations in the African nation. The Nigerian government is also currently in talks with local communities about resuming oil production in Ogoniland, which has been devastated by spills over the past half-century.
Responding to the U.K. Court of Appeals' greenlighting of the case set to be heard later this week, Bille Chief Bennett Okpoki said in December that "this has taken a very long time as Shell has been delaying for around 10 years."
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," he continued. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing. After the oil spills, we have found it very difficult to survive and people are not finding it easy. We hope it continues, so we can have a final victory over Shell, at least for them to come and do the cleanup, to put us in the place we were before."
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Calls for Big Oil to Cover LA Fire Damage as Chevron, Exxon Report Tens of Billions in 2024 Profits
"Megarich oil firms like Chevron and Exxon are knowingly driving and profiting from the climate crisis," said a Global Witness leader. "It's time they picked up the costs of repair."
Jan 31, 2025
As Chevron and ExxonMobil on Friday reported tens of billions in 2024 profits, campaigners intensified their demand for Big Oil to pay for the catastrophic levels of destruction caused by recent fires around Los Angeles, California, which were made more likely by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
"As LA residents reel from the damage done to their city, it's important we point out who has been driving the fossil fuel pollution that is turbo-charging climate disasters," said Lela Stanley, head of Fossil Fuel Investigations at Global Witness, in a statement. "Big Oil bosses have worked with their friends in politics to bake dirty fossil fuels into our energy systems, block climate action, and spread lies about climate change to divide and distract us."
"Instead of accounting for our safety or the health of the planet, megarich oil firms like Chevron and Exxon are knowingly driving and profiting from the climate crisis," she continued. "It's time they picked up the costs of repair."
Texas-based ExxonMobil's net income for last quarter was $7.6 billion, bringing its full-year total to $33.7 billion, the company said Friday. Chevron—which last August relocated its headquarters from San Ramon, California, to Houston—had profits of $3.2 billion during the fourth quarter and $17.7 billion throughout 2024, the hottest year on record.
"Just a quarter of these U.S. oil giants' annual profits could pay for $1 million payouts to each LA household that has lost a home."
Responding to the two companies' more than $51 billion in combined earnings, Stanley said that "just a quarter of these U.S. oil giants' annual profits could pay for $1 million payouts to each LA household that has lost a home. What's small change to Big Oil could have a transformative effect on ordinary people's lives."
Chevron earlier this month announced it would donate $1 million total to the American National Red Cross, California Fire Foundation, and Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Small Business Disaster Recovery Fund to aid recovery from what could be the costliest fire disaster in U.S. history.
Global Witness highlighted the World Weather Attribution's
finding that global heating—primarily caused by humanity's continued extraction and use of fossil fuels—made the weather conditions that caused the Los Angeles fires 35% more probable.
"Despite alarm from climate scientists over global heating and a surge in fossil fuel-driven disasters," the organization noted, "Exxon and Chevron have continued to expand their oil production, with the firms producing +4% and +3% more in 2024 than they did in 2023, respectively."
Chevron, the group added, "has actively sought to avoid paying out in the wake of climate disasters like the LA wildfires, spending $30 million with the Western States Petroleum Association—one of the U.S.'s largest fossil fuel trade groups—lobbying against a polluters pay-style bill."
During California's last legislative session, lawmakers introduced, but did not pass, a "climate superfund bill" that would make polluters pay into a fund for disaster prevention and cleanup. The fires have sparked a fresh push for such legislation.
Californians are fleeing wildfires while Exxon & Chevron rake in $36B+ in profits. Polluters profit, taxpayers foot the bill. California can’t wait, we must pass a #ClimateSuperfund bill so companies driving the climate crisis pay for the damage 💰 #MakePollutersPay
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— Stop the Money Pipeline ( @stopmoneypipeline.bsky.social) January 11, 2025 at 3:43 PM
On Monday, California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11) introduced a bill that would allow homeowners, businesses, and insurance companies impacted by climate disasters to recover losses by taking legal action against oil and gas companies, which have not only fueled the global climate emergency but also spent decades misleading the public about the harms of their products.
There are also renewed calls for accountability via the courts. California is among the U.S. states and municipalities suing fossil fuel companies—including Chevron and Exxon—for their decades of deception. The Center for Climate Integrity said earlier this month that the latest fires "underscore the importance of California's effort to hold Big Oil accountable in court for its climate lies."
At least 29 deaths are
connected to this month's fires in the state. Attorney and Public Citizen Climate Program Accountability Project director Aaron Regunberg last year co-authored a legal memo about bringing criminal charges against fossil fuel companies. During a January 16 press conference, he said that "it's involuntary manslaughter to recklessly cause a death. Local prosecutors should consider whether Big Oil's conduct here amounts to violations of these kind of criminal laws."
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