This executive summary encompasses three reports and provides context and overviews of the ways in which the chemicals studied poison recycling streams and stymie the promise of a healthy and environmentally sustainable circular economy.
Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are man-made chemicals that are regularly added to consumer products to reduce fire-related injury and damage. The massive production and use of BFRs was initiated as a response to frequent fires started by cigarettes in the 1970s. This solution focused on chemical fire retardants, rather than measures to increase fire safety of cigarettes and led to the development of related fire safety standards focused on chemical fire retardance.
This report studied BPA in products in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sri Lanka & Tanzania that come into contact with food or with children’s mouths.
In May 2021, the cargo ship X-Press Pearl caught fire outside of Sri Lanka. After the first wave of air pollution, the second wave of pollutants hit the beaches. It consisted of lost cargo, including billions of plastic pellets (microplastics used to produce plastics). Through summarizing the events leading up to and following the fire, analyzing plastics found on the beaches for toxic chemicals, and interviewing 107 fishermen and other locals, this report looks at:
Because almost all plastics contain toxic chemicals, recycling processes can perserve and can even generate toxic chemicals, such as dioxins. In this study, pellets made from recycled HDPE, intended for use in new products, were purchased from 24 recyclers in 23 countries and analyzed for 18 substances. The large number of toxic chemicals in many of the samples highlights the need to rethink recycling to ensure it does not perpetuate harms.
This summary of our two plastic pellets reports encapsulate the broad issues related to toxic chemicals in plastics and the concerns with recycling processes that can perserve or generate toxic chemicals.
Preproduction plastics as pellets, or "nurdles", can carry many different chemicals, both those added to the plastics and pollutants that attach (sorb) to them in the environment. Often lost during production, transportation, and storage, pellets have been found on beaches all over the world since the 1970s. This study of plastic pellets gathered from beaches in 23 different countries contained many chemicals of concern, some in very high concentrations.
According to the World Health Organization, lead is one of the ten heavy metals that need most attention to human health, especially children. It is estimated that in 2000, around 120 million people worldwide were exposed to lead, of which mainly children, each year an additional 600,000 children were recorded intellectually affected and 143,000 deaths were reported, due to lead exposure, especially in developing countries.
Most highly industrial countries adopted laws or regulations to control the lead content of decorative paints—the paints used on the interiors and exteriors of homes, schools, and other child-occupied facilities—beginning in the 1970s and 1980s. In Bangladesh, ESDO has been working with key government agencies since 2010 to establish a specific regulation on lead in paint. ESDO has prepared a draft regulatory framework and guideline, and submitted it to the Department of Environment (DOE).