The Chemical Footprint of a Plastic Bottle

The global beverage industry buys more than 500 billion plastic bottles every year to package its products. An upcoming report — to be released on May 23 — will document the harmful impacts of plastic bottles on human health, environmental justice, and climate change.

Hidden Hazards: The Chemical Footprint of a Plastic Bottle explores the many health harms of plastics production, the potential health effects of consuming beverages in plastic bottles, and dangers to workers and communities from recycling and disposal.

Defend Our Health’s Executive Director Mike Belliveau will present highlights of the report, including evidence that the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic used in beverage containers pollutes air, water, and food with cancer-causing chemicals. One of the report’s co-authors, Belliveau will also review findings that exposures to these chemicals falls disproportionately on communities of color and low-income people, largely in the Gulf Coast and Southeast US. Based on their findings, the authors of Hidden Hazards urge all beverage companies to take immediate action to achieve zero discharge of cancer-causing chemicals along the PET supply chain, and end the use of virgin fossil-based PET plastic by 2040 to help solve the climate crisis.