New Warnings on Plastic's Health Risks as Fracking Industry Promotes New 'Plastics Belt' Build-Out

In plastic's life cycle from drilling an oil and gas well to the time trash breaks down in the environment, virtually all plastic, according to the Center for International Environmental Law comes from fossil fuels from fracked oil and gas wells and the natural gas liquids bringing carcinogenics at every stage. A major push is attracting hundreds of billions in investment to produce more plastics, to create demand from industry for the raw materials produced by fracked shale wells.

A wave of investments to make more plastics and petrochemicals has swept shale regions across the U.S. Most of the investment has gone to building up the chemical corridor (also known as “Cancer Alley”) along the Gulf Coast, and the Marcellus shale drilling industry touts ethane from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia as the lowest-cost ethane in the world to attract petrochemical companies to the region.