Plastic-derived biofuels, proposed as part of the Biden Administration’s response to the global climate issue, appear to give both a solution to petroleum’s greenhouse gas emissions and a strategy to address the massive plastic trash problem.
Surprise! The technique of producing “biofuels” from plastic garbage — a key component of Chevron’s “climate-friendly” fuel pledge — turns out to be so poisonous that it might practically cause cancer.
According to papers uncovered, the Environmental Protection Agency’s own estimates suggest that pollution from the plastic-derived jet fuel Chevron proposes to begin producing will pose a one-in-four risk of cancer to anybody living near facilities where it is manufactured.
The one-in-four risk of cancer from the smoke stack pollution the Chevron facility will carry is, as the joint reporting notes, a whopping 250,000 times higher than what the EPA normally allows when approving new chemicals.
Yet for some reason, the EPA signed off on the Chevron project, according to the reporting — and even skipped some key steps that would normally bar this sort of risky chemical from being produced.
Nevertheless, as these and other major investigations have revealed, the process by which plastic is broken down can create pollutants that are potentially worse for the environment than burning fossil fuels.
To make matters worse, Pascagoula, Mississippi, is a predominantly Black neighborhood where Chevron proposes to manufacture the plastic-derived fuel with EPA approval, despite the recognized hazards.
Reference- The Guardian, ProPublica, The Reuters, Futurism, EPA website, Chevron website