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"Plastics plants are poisoning our waters and contaminating our bodies—and EPA needs to do its job and protect our waterways and downstream communities," said one watchdog leader.
Amid fears over President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a government watchdog on Thursday called out the EPA for letting the plastics industry pollute U.S. waterways with about half a billion gallons of wastewater every day.
The new report—Plastic's Toxic River: EPA's Failure to Regulate the Petrochemical Plants That Make Plastic—is based on an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) analysis of records for "70 petrochemical plants that manufacture the most common plastics and their primary chemical ingredients and discharge wastewater directly into rivers, lakes, and other water bodies."
The publication provides just a snapshot of the industry's pollution of U.S. waters. The group focused on plants "that make raw or pure plastics, sometimes referred to as resins, pellets, or nurdles, that are eventually turned into plastic products, like plastic bottles," and did not examine oil refineries or facilities that only make the end-use or consumer products.
"Federal regulations on the wastewater from plastics manufacturing plants have not been updated in over 30 years, are grossly outdated, and fail to protect waterways and downstream communities."
The document explains that "many harmful chemicals released by plastics manufacturers are completely unregulated" by the federal agency, including "dioxins, which are known cancer-causing agents that are highly toxic and persist in the environment; and 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen that EPA scientists recently indicated is threatening drinking water sources."
"Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution discharged from plastics and petrochemical plants—which cause algal blooms and fish-killing low-oxygen zones—are also not controlled by EPA's industrial wastewater rules," it continues. "Although state agencies can set limits for these pollutants in individual wastewater discharge permits, practices vary across states and the limits are inadequate and inconsistent."
EIP found that last year, the 70 plants collectively released nearly 10 million pounds of nitrogen and 1.9 million pounds of phosphorus into waterways. The previous year, eight facilities released an estimated 74,285 pounds of 1,4-dioxane, and 10 of the 17 plants manufacturing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or its ingredients released 1,374 grams of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.
The watchdog also found that "although absolute numbers are not known," releases of nurdles into waterways "appear to be common," enforcement of existing regulations is "rare," 58 of 70 plants violated the weak limits "by releasing more pollution than allowed at least once from 2021 to 2023," and 28 facilities are operating with outdated water permits.
"In addition to all these problems, petrochemical plants have been recognized by EPA as potential sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, the 'forever chemicals' that persist in waterways and have been linked to increased cancer risk, hormone disruption, reduced ability of the body to fight infections, and reproductive harms, including low birth weight in babies and developmental delays," the publication notes.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists last month published a study on forever chemicals in the journal Science and released an interactive, online map for the Lower 48 states. They estimated that "71 to 95 million people in the conterminous United States potentially rely on groundwater with detectable concentrations of PFAS for their drinking water supplies prior to any treatment."
EIP's new report highlights that "federal regulations on the wastewater from plastics manufacturing plants have not been updated in over 30 years, are grossly outdated, and fail to protect waterways and downstream communities," despite the Clean Water Act's requirement that the EPA "set wastewater discharge limits (called 'effluent limitation guidelines') for harmful pollutants based on the best available technology economically achievable."
"Because treatment technologies improve over time, EPA is supposed to review existing limits every five years and strengthen them when data show treatment options have improved," the document details. "EPA has failed to comply with this mandate, resulting in an excessive amount of potentially dangerous water pollution pouring from plastics manufacturers into America's waterways."
The group's recommendations are to mandate the use of modern wastewater pollution controls, prohibit plastic discharges into waterways, increase accountability at the state and federal level, enhance monitoring requirements in permitting, and improve permit transparency and recordkeeping.
"It is inexcusable that EPA is not following the Clean Water Act and failing to require the multibillion-dollar plastics industry to install modern pollution control systems," EIP executive director Jen Duggan said in a statement. "Plastics plants are poisoning our waters and contaminating our bodies—and EPA needs to do its job and protect our waterways and downstream communities."
Local groups in Lousiana, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia also responded to the report with calls for action.
"Decades of unchecked pollution have transformed the Calcasieu River into a dumping ground for toxic chemicals, with little accountability for the companies responsible," said James Hiatt, executive director of the Louisiana-based For a Better Bayou. "It's unacceptable that these plastics plants, profiting from our natural resources, are allowed to continue to release carcinogens like dioxins into our waterways. We need to hold these polluters accountable—and make them clean up the damage they've caused."
Despite such demands for action, environmental advocates have grave concerns about the EPA's future under Trump, including over his pick of Lee Zeldin, a former Republican member of Congress, to head the agency.
During Trump's first term, his administration rolled back over 100 environmental rules. Although Zeldin, as a congressman, was sometimes "willing and even eager to address environmental problems at home on coastal Long Island," as The New York Timesnoted Tuesday, his voting record and fealty to Trump have green groups fearful for the future.
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this week, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous declared that choosing a candidate "who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water lays bare Donald Trump's intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs, and our future out to corporate polluters."
"Protective landfill standards are an urgently needed addition to other significant actions EPA has recently taken to reduce climate-destabilizing and health-harming pollution," said one advocate.
Joined by two residents of a community where emissions from landfills have forced them to live in the "center of a toxic wasteland," more than a dozen environmental and community advocacy groups on Thursday filed a petition with the Biden administration calling for a number of specific regulations to address the United States' third-largest source of methane pollution.
A month after the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) published a report detailing how the nation's roughly 1,100 city and county landfills emitted at least 3.7 million metric tons of methane in 2021, the group was joined by the Sierra Club, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), and several other organizations to demand the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take action.
Javian Baker and Gilda Hagan-Brown, residents of Waggaman, Louisiana, which is adjacent to a landfill, also joined the petition. The emissions coming from the landfill mean that residents' "right to a healthy, safe and clean environment [is] jeopardized," said Hagan-Brown in a statement, and that their "aspirations have been destroyed."
"The foul gassy smell lurking in our neighborhood inhibits me from bringing my fifteen-month-old outside to play," said Baker. "This petition offers a glimpse of hope when politicians in Jefferson Parish and landfill officials have yet to get to the root of the problem impacting our predominately Black community."
The yearly methane emissions from landfills are equivalent to 295 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over 20-year period, or 66 million gasoline-powered vehicles over a year.
Edwin LaMair, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that technological advances in recent years, including the ability to conduct aerial surveys of methane emissions at landfills, offer the EPA "an enormous opportunity to update and strengthen its standards for landfill pollution."
"Landfill pollution poses serious public health threats, and protective landfill standards are an urgently needed addition to other significant actions EPA has recently taken to reduce climate-destabilizing and health-harming pollution," said LaMair.
In its report, Trashing the Climate, last month, EIP noted that landfills contribute to methane emissions mainly due to rotting food waste. Americans throw away roughly 40% of their food and food waste has soared in the last three decades.
The petition calls on the EPA to encourage composting and waste reduction to reduce landfill methane emissions.
The Rocky Mountain Institute explained on social media earlier this week how diverting waste from landfills not only reduces emissions, but also allows the waste to be converted into valuable resources for communities.
The groups on Wednesday also called on the EPA to:
"Virginia is home to eight 'mega-landfills,' many of which are sited in low-income communities of color," said Anne Havemann, general counsel for CCAN. "These landfills emit huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but have not received the attention they deserve for all the pollution they release. We look forward to EPA taking action on this under-the-radar issue."
"Landfills not only contribute to climate change, but they disproportionately impact low-income neighborhoods and communities of color forced to live near dumps," said the co-author of a new report.
Methane emissions from U.S. municipal landfills—collectively, one of the nation's largest sources of the planet-heating greenhouse gas—could be reduced if the Environmental Protection Agency enacted "strong new regulations," a report released Thursday argues.
The report—entitled Trashing the Climate: Methane From Municipal Landfills—was published by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. The publication notes that "more than 1,100 municipal landfills emitted at least 3.7 million metric tons of methane in 2021, which had the climate-warming impact of 66 million gasoline-powered vehicles driving for a year or 79 coal-fired power plants."
"To reduce this major but little-discussed source of potent greenhouse gases, EPA must impose regulations that mandate more gas-collection systems at landfills, require more monitoring and accurate reporting of methane emissions, and encourage more composting, recycling, and reduction in the waste stream by consumers," the paper asserts.
Methane—which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere—is emitted from landfills primarily due to rotting food waste. Americans throw away about 40% of their food, and U.S. food waste soared by 70% between 1990 and 2017, according to the report.
EIP also found that "municipal waste landfills are often located in communities where residents are people of color or have lower incomes."
"Fifty-four percent of the landfills reporting to EPA's greenhouse gas database are surrounded by communities, within a one-mile radius, that exceed national averages for people of color or residents considered low-income," the report notes.
\u201cA \ud83e\uddf5on how landfill methane is trashing the climate, and what we can do about it, as explored in our new report: https://t.co/vt1ShnSNnP\u201d— Environmental Integrity Project (@Environmental Integrity Project) 1684427530
The publication continues:
In Uniontown, Alabama, a community that is 98% Black and 64% below the poverty line, neighbors complain about odors, nausea, headaches, and other illnesses from a landfill that receives 93% of its garbage from out of state. In the Curtis Bay and Brooklyn neighborhoods of Baltimore, a community that is 60% Black or nonwhite Hispanic, a nearby landfill owned by the city is one of the top methane emitters in Maryland.
EIP ranked the 10 leading methane-emitting landfills in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. Sampson County Landfill in Roseboro, North Carolina tops the list with 32,983 metric tons of methane released—more than 10 times the average landfill.
Another problem highlighted in the report is that "EPA's greenhouse gas numbers and information database are not based on pollution monitoring or sampling. Instead, all data on methane and other greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are estimated using mathematical formulas that likely lowball the real numbers."
Last year, EIP
sued the EPA, alleging the agency underreported landfill pollutant levels due to outdated estimation methods.
"EPA is failing to adequately control methane from landfills, a huge source of greenhouse gases, and we can no longer ignore this problem with the climate crisis heating up ," EIP senior attorney and report co-author Leah Kelly said in a statement Thursday. "Landfills not only contribute to climate change, but they disproportionately impact low-income neighborhoods and communities of color forced to live near dumps."
\u201c#Foodwaste = 18% of human-derived methane emissions. \n\nBut these #emissions are simple to reduce dramatically. Composting food = up to 84 percent less greenhouse gas emissions coming from landfills!\n#wastemanagement #ccac2023 #CCAC #methane #foodwaste\n\nhttps://t.co/cCjDYXQPKu\u201d— Climate & Clean Air Coalition (@Climate & Clean Air Coalition) 1684315540
In order to tackle methane pollution from landfills, the report recommends:
"The U.S. must reduce landfill methane, but it must do so without increasing toxic pollution in the air that people breathe and without further threatening the health of low-income communities and communities of color," the report concludes. "Composting and improved pollution controls are solutions to the problem of landfill methane. Incineration is not a solution; it is exchanging one problem for another."