Complications During Production
(Environmental Impacts, Worker Safety)
- A 1986 EPA report on solid waste named the polystyrene manufacturing process as the 5th largest creator of hazardous waste.
- The international trade agreement — Montreal Protocol — decided to phase-out ozone depleting CFCs by the year 2000.
- CFCs and HCFCs are the same? — EPA Office of Air and Radiation: “Chemicals such as HCFC-22 contain hydrogen….Thus, HCFC-22 is not technically a CFC.”
***The industry succeeded in legally changing the name of CFC-22, as had they called it for a half-century, and renamed it (the ‘environmentally friendly’) “HCFC-22.”
Consumer Health Problems: It’s Everywhere!
(Public Contamination, Feeling Funny?, Styrene Is Where?, Infants?, You Put What On My Cereal?!)
- Chemicals like styrene, used to make polystyrene plastic (Dow calls it styrofoam…shhh!) and therefore a contaminant in all polystyrene foam packages, are known to indiscriminately attack tissue and the nervous system.
- Styrene has been detected in factory air, as well as in ambient air, rivers, drinking water, and food that sits in polystyrene containers.
- Absorbed through the lungs, skin, and intestines; styrene biotransforms into a carcinogen and a mutagenic compound.
Throw It Where?! The Core Of Disposal Issues
(According To The Industry…, The Facts, Incineration, Recycling)
- Polystyrene promotes the throw away consumer ethic.
- More permanent, less polluting, reusable alternatives are available for almost all of its current applications, but industry chooses to ignore these options.
- Polystyrene gets the worst rating for its recyclability.
Everything you ever wanted to know about polystyrene and the McToxics Campaign
(McLibel Trial Testimony)
Eliminating the Use of Polystyrene
Return to Plastics vs. the Environment Homepage
Last modified: 4 Mar 1996
http://www.ejnet.org/plastics/polystyrene/