Plastics are treated as
a product that
miraculously appears from nowhere
and it goes to nowhere.
It starts when the oil and the gas
leave the wellhead
and it keeps on being a problem
at every step in the stage
along the way
Why is it that we are seeing so much more
plastics entering the environment?
And there's no better place to be talking
about that than here in Houston.
This is the story of plastics.
(Take care of Texas)
(It's the only one we've got)
The East end of Houston all the way to Baytown
it's almost a pattern:
you have a refinery, a park, a school.
A refinery, a park, a school
A chemical plant
has a huge amount of green space next to it.
and it's usually across from
neighborhoods, then a refinery, a park, a school
storage facility, a park a neighborhood.
Most of the industry
along the Houston Ship Channel
is the chemical complex
is the chemical cluster.
So the chemicals are used for products
for plastic products
and I don't think
people know that.
Chemicals cause health issues
to the respiratory system,
neurological system,
cardiovascular systems--
and so community members in this area
are constantly reporting health issues
in terms of breathing, headaches, nosebleeds.
Other people don't have to go through this
why should we?
Far before
the plastics enters our oceans
and enters our waste streams
and enters our food supplies
it is entering the communities
that are being affected by this build-out every day
and their reality is a reality
that we paid too little attention to
for too long.
Most of these people want to talk
they want to speak, they have no idea--
They've been living here
their whole lives
And they'll come out to meetings and say
'I had no idea--
that I was being exposed to X chemical
for X amount of years
that it had any sort of, like, effects on my health
or on my children'.
They'll say: "I've been living here my entire life
and I never looked
at the refinery as hurting me."
That is part of the hidden story of plastics
and it's part that needs to come into the light
I would want
someone who goes into a store
to look at a plastic product
to know that
poor rural communities with no resources
are experiencing the fracking
I want them to know that it took a pipeline,
and a 18-wheeler to cross through a community
cause there is no 18-wheeler traffic
in nice communities--
that it is being transported
and it is being refined and
that it is causing
everything from contamination of groundwater
in rural communities
to pipeline leaks and spills
from point A to point B
and then when it gets over to our communities
that that same raw material
is being processed and
that it's letting off toxic fumes, that it is
shortening the lifespan of people,
That it is shortening the lifespan of children.
Because folks that have lived in these communities and
and who have suffered the impacts
have never seen one tear,
have never seen one dollar
have never seen one organizer
in their communities trying to stop
the toxic health impacts.
That's what I want them to know,
That it is killing people.
It's a very real thing for us
it's our lives