Defend Our Health Releases First-Ever Study that Reveals the Hard Truths Behind Plastic Bottles

Today – ahead of the global plastics treaty negotiations in Paris –  Defend our Health and the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign released a new report, Hidden Hazards: The Chemical Footprint of a Plastic Bottle, unmasking the shocking hazards posed by a seemingly innocuous everyday item: the plastic bottle. This report reveals the health, environmental, and climate threats caused throughout the lifecycle of common plastic known as polyethylene terephthalate or PET – from the hazardous air emissions released in the petrochemical manufacturing process to the cancer-causing toxic chemicals leaked in the consumption and final waste stages. The report also unveils how chemical manufacturers and beverage companies continue to perpetuate environmental racism to produce PET plastic bottles.

Worldwide, the beverage industry buys more than 500 billion plastic bottles annually – nearly a million per minute – and beverage companies in the United States are responsible for producing about 100 billion of these plastic bottles for their products. The Coca-Cola company is one of the largest corporate consumers of PET plastic bottles globally. Making PET requires hundreds of chemicals, including ethylene oxide (EtO), the most potent cancer-causing chemical emitted by chemical manufacturers, and antimony, which has been found to disproportionately impact Black and Latinx communities.

Read the full report here.

Read the press release here.