Editor's Note for July 2025 Networker

If you’re like me, these days, navigating our own wellbeing along with our broader commitments to the collective good feels increasingly fraught. There are so many societal developments that, if they aren’t directly harming us already, they’re harming someone. Will my brother lose his Medicaid? Will my or another community’s emergency notification system prove deficient in a severe storm?  Will salmonella outbreaks continue unabated, since the USDA has recently backed away from proposed new poultry safety standards?

All the while, the ongoing dilemmas persist. Paper versus Plastic. Plastic versus glass. Recyclable or not? Have I seen the newest purchasing guide? Has Wirecutter reviewed my water bottle? Purchasing choices could take up absurd amounts of our time and attention, if we let them. Added to longstanding anxiety about product safety, we’re also now witnessing the attempted deconstruction of our federal consumer protection systems. 

As you know, SEHN takes a systemic, collective, policy-focused approach to preventing harm to public health and ecological systems from chemical and climate pollution. While we obviously wouldn’t deny that individual behavior change can play a role protecting people, or even add up to substantive, positive shifts in, for example, marketplace offerings or human-caused emissions, we work for the kind of change that happens before you go shopping.   

The more research results that come out on the details and extent and impacts of plastics pollution, the more clear it is that we can’t navigate this ourselves in our role as consumers. The science we already have must urgently be applied to regulations (preservation of hard-fought systems and continued improvements) and manufacturing practices. 

A recent study had the surprising finding that some beverages sold in glass bottles had higher levels of microplastics than those same beverages in plastic. Cutting to the solution (at least in terms of immediate consumer protection, not with regard to the overall existence of the microplastics): The authors identified the bottle caps as the source of the particles, as well as an easy cleaning practice manufacturers could employ to significantly reduce the contamination. 

SEHN science director Ted Schettler continues sharing his scientific and policy expertise on the plastics crisis in this edition of our newsletter. In this piece, Dr. Schettler updates us on health impacts and associated research challenges, and also warns us against the rampant greenwashing taking place in plastics marketing. He discusses “extended producer responsibility” policies that hold product manufacturers responsible for products beyond their useful lifespan. Predictably, there is corporate resistance to this responsibility which could entail product redesign, increased production costs, and/or threats to their current business models.

In Sandra Steingraber’s column this month, she revisits the protests at plastics manufacturer Formosa USA’s headquarters in New Jersey in August 2024, when six activists were arrested on trespassing charges. Four chose to go to trial, and after a series of court battles, they recently prevailed after a judge determined that the same injurious actions for which Formosa was previously found liable have continued unabated, thereby harming the appellant and others. This is a legal demonstration of where the responsibility lies in protecting the public from plastics pollution.

We will continue to shed light on how things should work with regard to solving the vast, interconnected health and ecological crises. Even as our federal government mocks the very idea of societal care and responsibility, we will collaborate and educate on the current opportunities for protections and solutions, as well as collectively imagine what comes next. 

Thank you so much for the recent response to our twice-yearly fundraising! Here’s the link if you missed it, and wish to support to our work.

Warmly,
Carmi Orenstein, MPH