Deirdre McKay

Communities near petrochemical plants pay the price for plastic convenience Plastics are cheap but their production harms refinery communities through pollution and toxic emissions. At the recent Geneva talks, disagreements between petrochemical-rich nations and others over p...

Nice article by Ravleen Kaur on the health and environmental impacts of #plastic *production*. This again highlights why #plasticpollution cannot be treated as a waste or clean-up issue: it must be tackled at the source. india.mongabay.com/2025/09/comm...

UN politics won’t deliver an ambitious plastics treaty Negotiators again failed to finalize the text for a global plastics treaty in Geneva in August 2025. The talks exposed two harsh truths. Consensus on the treaty text, where no state formally objects, ...

A bloc of oil-producing states with powerful petrochemical interests is distorting scientific findings and opposing any controls on new plastics.

Preventing a weak treaty was a victory for those advocating strong, binding measures regulating plastic production.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Scientists Warn: Bottled Water May Pose Serious Long-Term Health Risks Using it regularly introduces tens of thousands of microplastic and nanoplastic particles into the body each year. The tropical beauty of Thailand’s Phi Phi islands is not the kind of place where most...

scitechdaily.com/scientists-w...

In food history, we notice how super-refined foods--gelatin, vienna sausage, white bread--lose class and become horrifying once they become industrialized. Suddenly, fingermarks in bread dough demonstrate skill, not clumsiness.

Post-chatGPT, I'm feeling this about writing. Smoothness feels gross.

Microplastics Could Be Weakening Your Bones, Research Suggests The review of more than 60 scientific articles showed that microplastics, among other effects, can stimulate the formation of osteoclasts, cells specialized in degrading bone tissue.

At last: media coverage of the new research on microplastics and osteoporosis—

www.wired.com/story/microp...

Microplastics Found Deep Inside Human Bones, Scientists Warn Microplastics are now so ubiquitous we're drinking, eating, and inhaling them.

Microplastics are now so ubiquitous we're drinking, eating, and inhaling them. As a result, they're showing up in our stool, placentas, reproductive organs, and brains. Now these particles, less than 5 mm in size, have been found deep within our bones.
www.sciencealert.com/microplastic...

World’s oceans fail key health check as acidity crosses critical threshold for marine life Scientists call for renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels as seven of nine planetary boundaries now transgressed

World’s oceans fail key health check as acidity crosses critical threshold for marine life.

Scientists call for renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels as seven of nine planetary boundaries now transgressed

Story by me on latest planetary boundaries report

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

#plastic #recycling #adana | Sedat Gündoğdu | 10 comments This morning (21.09.2025), residents of Çukurova, Adana, woke up under a dark sky filled with toxic smoke. A fire broke out in an illegal #plastic waste depot located in Küçükdikili. These facilities ...

Another #plastics recycling facility on fire, this one hosting waste "exported" by the UK to Turkey. A terrible case of #wastecolonialism and a huge health hazard to those downwind and ultimately, all of us, as many of the pollutants will enter the food chain. www.linkedin.com/posts/sedat-...

Plastics in the marine carbon cycle - Nature Sustainability Marine plastic pollution is a growing problem threatening ocean ecosystems. Now research explores how these plastics may be impacting the ocean’s ability to offset anthropogenic carbon emissions.

"...We are making & discarding so much plastic that it has become a substantial component of the global carbon cycle..." Aron Stubbins (The Plastics Center at Northeastern University) on Pang et al's piece on plastics & the marine carbon cycle in NatureSustainability

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy UK Publication Day to THE NATURE OF FASHION by @carrysomers.bsky.social! #BookSky

it's good...but that 7.5 bn could be better targeted. The pacific garbage patch is only a tiny % of the plastic entering the ocean. Targeting the source at rivers is far more important.
Hannah Ritchie's 'Not the end of the world' looks at this problem specifically

Microfibers and microplastics graphic with a photo of examples with types and sizes circled and labeled. The Wet Tribe moon icon in the corner.

Microplastics are less than 5mm. Primary microplastics are pellets, microbeads, capsules, or fibers. Secondary microplastics are larger pieces of plastic that have broken apart when exposed to sunlight, salt, and wave action. #WetTribe #TidetotheOcean #Microplastics #Microfibers

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from a video game:

"Are all the accomplishments of humanity fated to be nothing more than a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed, sandwiched between the Burgess Shale and an eon's worth of mud?"

- Dr. Breen, Half-Life 3

"Crucially, the Chinese coal-conversion industry is set to expand even further, potentially offsetting declines elsewhere in the country, including a reduction in coal demand to produce cement and steel."

Photos: Indigenous elders push for comeback of the revered Philippine crocodile DUNOY, Philippines — In the dense, tropical rainforests of the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, an ancient predator drifts silently beneath the surface of still rivers. For Indigenous Agta elders,…

Indigenous Agta elders are involved in efforts to rebrand the image of the critically endangered Philippine crocodile.

Conservationists warn that without stable funding and stronger government support, even successful grassroots efforts may not ensure the species’ long-term survival.

"Climate expertise must shift from tech illusions to concrete proposals on sufficiency, redistribution, sectoral degrowth and structural change..."

Opinion | Throwaway Plastic Has Corrupted Us

"Single-use plastic was never inevitable. It was a business decision," writes Saabira Chaudhuri. Good reminder of manufactured demand.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/o...

Pennsylvania Plastics Pollution Settlement Could Set a National Precedent for Control of Pellets - Inside Climate News The case is the first citizen suit to successfully settle over “nurdles” in an inland waterway. State regulators weighed in to help.

Pennsylvania plastic producer held accountable for nurdle/preproduction plastic pollution into local river system. insideclimatenews.org/news/0409202... #plasticstreaty

The disinformation playbook: how industry manipulates the science-policy process—and how to restore scientific integrity - Journal of Public Health Policy For decades, corporate undermining of scientific consensus has eroded the scientific process worldwide. Guardrails for protecting science-informed processes, from peer review to regulatory decision ma...

"Five tactics used by industry to undermine science. The disinformation playbook tactics are employed by industry during the scientific process and the science-based decision-making process"

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

'It's a way of the sea returning the trash to us': Why plastic-filled 'Neptune balls' are washing up on beaches As tiny pieces of plastic clog our oceans, natural meadows of seagrass are bundling up microplastics and spitting them back out onto beaches in the form of "Neptune balls".

www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

And what would be the fate of the many persistent and often toxic chemicals added to the plastics?

Assume the digestion is complete, and the polymers are broken down to very basic molecules, such as CO2 or methane. That would address the #microplastic problem, but the carbon — which comes from fossil fuels — would still likely escape to the atmosphere.

7 Works of Art that Will Open Your Eyes to Plastic Pollution These works of art by Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) Artist Allies will open your eyes to an issue that affects us all: plastic pollution.

Art can be used to confront and depict the world around us. Here we highlight artists that use art to address one of the planet’s most pressing issues: the plastic pollution crisis—sparking conversation and demanding change.

bit.ly/3VweKJ3

#PlasticPollutes #BreakFreeFromPlastic #Art

Last time I saw one of those, it had been in the stomach of a Sable (flesh-footed) shearwater. Plastic sachets should also be banned.
#PlasticPollution #Seabirds

YouTube video by Center for International Environmental Law Plastics Treaty - What happened? What's next?

Plastics Treaty — What happened? What's next?
Negotiations collapsed in Geneva. Disappointing, yes. Defeat? Certainly not.
📽️ Watch: What happened, what's next — and why we still have hope! #PlasticsTreaty #INC52 youtu.be/-HgqLVANa78

Humans inhale as much as 68,000 microplastic particles daily, study finds Particles are small enough to burrow into lungs, says report, with health impacts ‘more substantial than we realize’

We're breathing in #microplastics and #nanoplastics. A lot more than we thought. This is Not Good. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

That threat is not just the CO2 emissions generated through the refining of fossil fuels; the production of monomers, polymer resins, & final plastic products; & the incineration of plastics; but also the various toxic chemicals added to those polymers and the microplastics that they decompose into.

You've read the headlines, now hear the hot takes from our team on the ground at #PlasticsTreaty negotiations. What went wrong, what’s at stake, and why the fight for an ambitious treaty is far from over.
👉 bit.ly/4fWv67q

‘A double-whammy problem’: how plastic dust is altering natural processes Carbon emissions from plastics production are no surprise. But when plastic turns to dust, it also affects how the planet absorbs carbon from the air, on land and in the oceans.

‘A double-whammy problem’: how #plastic dust is altering natural processes

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

#plasticpollution

Plastics: all around us and inside us From your toothbrush to your bloodstream: how everyday plastics break down into fragments small enough to cross into your organs.

It was obvious years ago that #plasticpollution was a #publichealth crisis in the making theconversation.com/plastics-all...