Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - The Great Recycling Scam: How Big Plastic Fooled America | Julia Cohen

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Everything you put in that blue recycling bin? Most of it was never actually recycled.Julia Cohen, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Plastic Pollution Coalition, is here to explain the biggest PR campaign of the last 50 years — and why it worked so well. We get into the microplastics and chemicals now showing up in human blood, brains, and breast milk, the everyday items quietly exposing you, and what the plastics industry has been hiding from you the whole time.Thank you to our sponsors!GEVITI: Use code "ALEX" to get 20% off of your first purchasePRIMALLY PURE: Use code ALEXCLARK for 15% off your first orderA'DEL NATURAL COSMETICS: Use code "ALEX" for 25% off first time ordersCOWBOY COLOSTRUM: Use code “ALEX” for 25% OFFBIRTHRIGHT: Use code "ALEX" for 15% off your first orderPRIMA: Use code "ALEXCLARK20" for 20% off a one-time purchaseOur Guest:Julia CohenJulia's Links:InstagramFacebookTikTokYouTubeXWebsiteFOLLOW ALEX:Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@cultureapothecary⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @yoalexrapz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @RealAlexClark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always talk to a qualified healthcare professional for any health-related questions or decisions.

Did plastic manufacturers know decades ago? Most plastic was never realistically going to be recycled. It was never designed to be recycled. Why were consumers being told that recycling was the answer? Don't even know how many millions of dollars has been spent on the Keep America Beautiful campaign. The fake crying Indian by the side of the road is someone throwing something out of their car window. That's a sham. It was entirely a marketing strategy.

Out of nowhere, conservatives are like, let's talk about plastics and fast fashion. Because I feel like we've made fun of people that cared about this. issue. They affect everybody. If one and two people in this country is going to have some form of cancer, this has nothing to do with where you stand politically. It has everything to do with how we solve it. When you're walking down the street, walking through an airport, or even at school, you are inundated with signs that are telling you to recycle. We see those little triangles on the bottom of bottled water or soda bottles and we think this can be recycled. But what if everything that we've been told about plastic and even recycling is one big sham.

My guest is Julia Cohen, co-founder and executive director of Plastic Pollution Coalition. And this episode is mind-blowing. I have been wanting to do this episode for years, and Julia really was the perfect guest to wait for. Watch this on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. We need your five-star reviews. If you're a new listener or you've been listening for a while, make sure you take two seconds to click five stars, and then leave a sentence on which episode officially made you a fan. Maybe it's this one.

Please welcome Julia Cohen from the Plastic Pollution Coalition Coalition to Culture Apothecary. I am absolutely jumping out of my skin for this interview, Julia. I cannot express to you for years I've wanted to do this topic. And I've talked about plastic on the show a little bit, but I haven't talked about recycling at all, which I know we're going to get into today. And the reason is because politically I differ from a lot of people doing the work that you do I think I differ from you yourself probably on most political issues. But on this topic, we really agree.

And so it's been hard to find somebody that's been willing to come on the show to talk about this, unfortunately. And so when you said yes, I was just so thankful and excited because it just shows that it doesn't really matter whether you're coming from the left or the right. This is a massive public health issue that everybody should be concerned about. And so I just wanted to thank you for coming on. Thank you for having us. And totally agree.

100% nonpartisan, and this is something that is affecting the future of humanity. Has it been so weird for you that out of nowhere conservatives are like, wait, let's talk about plastics and fast fashion and all these health issues? Because I feel like for a while, we kind of like made fun of people that cared about this issue. I'm not surprised. I've worked in in politics for decades from a perspective of public health, women's health, reproductive health, environmental health, And all of those things are nonpartisan inherently. They affect everybody. If one in two people in this country is going to have some form of cancer, this has nothing to do with where you stand politically.

It has everything to do with how we solve it. But that's a different discussion. So we found out that trans fats weren't safe, that cigarettes weren't safe, that paint made from lead wasn't safe. Go figure. You know, Teflon, BPAs. Is plastic the next chapter in that story, you know, a product that we were told was perfectly safe but actually isn't? Plastics have been around since the, you know, World War II. A lot of the problems that you just mentioned are also things that grew out of the chemical development for war efforts.

And it's only been a matter of time that I think we've caught up to recognize how significant impact it's having globally as well. So in short, yes, I think there's a lot of history based on those other issues that are helping our movement to understand how we actually go about reaching people more broadly to talk about these problems and to solve them. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think of the American way of life, right? And I think about metal lunch boxes and glass bottles of milk and cloth diapers, right? Everybody was using cloth diapers. How did we become the United States of plastic? All those things bringing back the milkman metal lunch containers, all of that is part of what we're doing to solve.

The problem now is bringing those things back. Part of how we got here is that by looking for and creating markets for all those chemicals and materials made for the war effort, markets were created. Massive amounts of Madison Avenue marketing were spent to sell us the ideal. of convenience. I mean, there's a life magazine cover image of, you know, a family just throwing tons of plastic up into the air. It's like the thing to save all housewives day is you can just throw it away. From the beginning, plastic actually was never made to be recycled. It was not designed that way. It was not made to be reused. It was made to be thrown away and considered, you know, just waste, which was okay to throw away. We know now that.

that that's not okay. What's been the most disturbing thing that scientists have discovered about plastic in the last five years? Oof, there is so much. The first thing that comes to mind is, I think, in particular in the last five years, the research on microplastics and nanoplastics has really exploded. No pun intended. The, you know, microplastics are smaller than five millimeters. Nano are like nanoparticles, like not seen by the human eye and even, you know, the smaller microplastics not really easy to see. The research now is finding it pretty much everywhere it looks. So it's not just in our air and our water and our soil and our food. It is in pretty much every part of our body that scientists have looked.

Where in the body are we now finding might be coated with plastic or at least have a plastic accumulation? Right. Yeah. So it's not coating. It's literally embedding. So nanoplastics are being found in the vascular in our brains, in our hearts, in the placenta, on the mother's side and the baby side, in breast milk, in testes, in human and animal feces everywhere. Why do you think that we're finding so much on the brain in particular? Brains need fat to grow and to thrive. And plastics absorb and are attracted to fats. and the chemicals in plastic to make them clear, flexible, you know, hard, flame resistant,

all of that is, you know, are also attracted to and attached to and part of those micro and nanoplastics. So you get the bioaccumulation not only of, you know, the nanoparticles inside of veins and our bodies and animals' bodies and everything, but also all those chemicals. See, I think people like hear us talk about this and they're like, I don't understand. How does a plastic fork or a water bottle or a takeout container end up in my brain? How do you explain that to people? I mean, the entire supply chain is shedding microplastics, right? So from, you know, the creation of plastic to the sharing of it, the using of it, the disposal of it all along the way, washing your clothes, etc. All of those things shed these particles that are in our water.

So you're drinking it, right? It's in the air. You're breathing it, right? You're putting things on your body. Your body is absorbing it. You're eating with a plastic utensil. You are eating parts of that plastic. That food that you're eating was probably made in an industrial kitchen,

depending on where it came from, chopped on plastic cutting boards, potentially saved in plastic containers, delivered to you in a plastic container. You may be putting it in a plastic container. You may be heating it up in a plastic container in the microwave. Every step of the way, those things are interacting and leaching.

Even brushing our teeth? Even brushing your teeth. Dentists and the, you know, that whole community has found, and that was part of why the one piece of federal legislation that has been passed about the Microbeads Act, I think from 2015, was to ban microbeads in personal care products because dentists were literally finding microplastics under the gums in people's mouths. Is plastic becoming this generation's lead paint or cigarettes? I would say 100%. I think the awareness is growing significantly. And that is what we set out with creating Plastic Pollution Coalition to do 17 years ago was tell the true story about plastic and call it what it is pollution. The majority of plastic is not recycled, which I know we'll get into.

But it's also, you know, as I said, never meant to be reused. So when you reuse it, you're also shedding those microplastics, eating, breathing, drinking those microplastics. And as people learn about this, as the connections to health and the science are made even stronger every day, as that science emerges even further, we know enough to act. Do you think that Americans are being told the full truth about plastics health risks? No, I don't think so personally. And I think professionally there is more and more kind of smoking gun metamount. and information coming out that the industry literally knew that like the market for plastic and the way to make the most money was they said literally in the trash can. By creating something that could be thrown away that, you know, people who worked in those factories and worked in the processing also had health issues as we found with other chemicals, you know, especially the women.

Then these things have been known over time, and they have definitely been distracted from, and the marketing and the information has, you know, been deliberately put the onus on individuals to recycle better, to, you know, make it our problem, make it an individual decision, all of these things. When the protections, the regulations that people assume that our government and different branches of the government are doing to protect us from things that can impact our. health have been non-existent. So one of my favorite movies ever is Dark Waters with Mark Rumpalo and Ian Hathaway. And I actually interviewed the real-life lawyer that that movie was based on on this show. Yep. And he told the story, you know, about Teflon and how the people that were working on the assembly line making Teflon products were getting sick. Their babies were being born with birth defects.

And you just mentioned that people that were actually making plastic products were getting sick and having all kinds of problems, especially the women. And can you elaborate on that and like what was going on and what does go on with people that are working on making plastic products? As I said before, the entire supply chain, that entire life cycle of the creation of plastics. So 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. So the extraction of oil and gas in this country, in the Ohio River Valley, in Louisiana, what's referred to as Cancer Alley in the Houston corridor, I mean, the people who live on the front line and fence line, the poor working class, people of color, indigenous people who live in these regions have some of the worst health impacts. Wait, why Ohio River Valley? That's the Permian Basin. So a lot of dinosaurs died there, basically.

So underground is a lot of oil and gas and frat gas. A lot of plastics are made from frac gas. Plastics is plan B for the oil and gas industry. And now basically becoming Plan A. People refer to this as the triple planetary crisis because it is a health crisis. It is an environmental crisis. It is a, you know, political crisis. Wars are being fought over plastic because it's made from oil and gas, basically, right?

And the price of these things have gone up, whereas, you know, no one's fighting over solar energy. It's fascinating what you're saying about the Ohio River Valley because that's where I grew up. My dad died of glioblastoma brain cancer. Now, there's a bunch of things, I mean, his diet, lifestyle, lots of things. lots of things I think contributed to that, but that is like very interesting to me that you bring that up because I didn't even know that. Yeah. Well, so part of why my sister and I are co-founders of Plastic Pollution Coalition is because our mom died of cancer when I was 13 and she was 17. She was born and raised in Florida, the Miami area. There was, you know, nuclear testing and the atolls and the islands and things around there. We now know that the cancer she had that was originally breast and lymph and eventually liver was endocrine.

related. And endocrine disruption is part of what plastic and the chemicals and plastic do to our bodies. Another thing that does that is perfume. Yes. I mean, this episode isn't about perfume, but I just have to ask, do you wear perfume? So I actually have a true botanicals roll-on bomb in glass. There you go. People always want to suggest. Certified. Certified. If you haven't heard of made safe, it's the Cadillac of Healthy Certifications for Personal Care and other products. True Botanicals founded by Hillary Peterson, who also is a cancer survivor who worked in fast fashion and personal care products, started this company after she survived cancer in order to create a whole line that was non-toxic and certified, made safe from the beginning. So cool. I bet you've met you've met so many cool people doing this job. Amazing. And amazing women founders. We have over 250 business members in our coalition. So Kate McLeod, body bombs and butters. and things, no water, now being carried in Sephora. Neat.

Oh, I bet you love Amma. Oh, yes. Johanna Helrigal, the chef there is amazing and a friend. And she just spoke, we did 15 years later. We did it once before and we just did it in November. TEDx Great Pacific Garbage Patch in Santa Monica in November. And she gave TEDx talk about how she's behind the scenes in her kitchen, in her restaurant, Amma in D.C.

trying to eliminate all of the single-use plastic. They don't use plastic cutting boards in the back of the kitchen. I mean, most places, even when you go to a restaurant, the behind-the-scenes, they may be serving everything in a nice restaurant and glass and ceramic and, you know, real stuff. But behind the scenes, the majority of kitchens are filled with plastic. So why are they doing that? Because the health inspector says there's a risk with, like, you know, raw chicken on wood or something so they can't use a wood cutting board. I don't know about that regulation, but yeah, like when you're on airplanes, if you ask to have your drink or your water put in your own reusable cup, as I often do. That's smart.

I carry all of my own reusables with me, although we shouldn't have to. You know, I will have certain folks say, oh, I'm not allowed to do that. Or they'll pour it into a plastic cup and then pour the plastic cup into my cup. So I think there definitely are health and safety regulations that have been promoted and pushed and implemented that are probably, for certain good reasons, but also some of them are probably for business and profit reasons. I need to say something because I see this in my DMs every single day. Alex, I want to get my health together, but I just don't know where to start. Or I'll do it later when I have more money. You know, I've heard every version of this, and I get it. The system is confusing on purpose.

You go to a doctor. They check like five things. They tell you you're fine. They send you home. Meanwhile, you're still feeling exhausted, inflamed, just off. So then you do nothing. You wait. and waiting becomes your health plan. This is why I'm really excited about what Jevity just did. They launched a completely free tier, not a trial, free. You go to gogevity.com, upload blood work that you already have from any lab, and they give you a personalized longevity blueprint that analyzes over 90 biomarkers and actually shows you what's going on.

When I saw my blueprint, I didn't just want to know. I mean, I saw all that info, and I wanted to fix it. And if that's you, after finding out about what's going on with you, you can do the Jevity plus membership. You get an actual functional clinician who walks through your results and builds a plan around you. Not a template.

They build you a plan and they don't stop at just testing. You get access to supplements, peptides, hormone optimization, nutrition help, real protocols based on your laps. They test over 90 biomarkers, retest every six months,

adjust your plan, and you have a care team you can actually message. Go to gogevity.com, use code Alex. Again, go to gogevity.com, use code Alex. You know what terrifies me? Not AI, not the economy, not even seed oils. It's walking through Sephora and seeing an 11-year-old with a shopping basket full of products that make her look like she's heading to a Las Vegas residency. Sweetheart, you're in the sixth grade. You do not need

17 contour sticks. You should look like you're going to summer camp, not like Jody Foster and taxi driver. That's why I actually love Primely Peer's new lip and cheek tint. I am wearing it right now. What do we think? If you've got a younger sister, daughter, niece, or tween in your life who wants to play with makeup, this is perfect. I am inheriting. I had to count. Forty nieces and nephews from Vance. I do not know how many nieces out of that there are, but there's tons. Okay, there's a lot. And I'll definitely be recommending this to the moms of older ones. It gives that healthy, flushed, beautiful look instead of looking overdone. It has nourishing ingredients plus SPF 15, zero toxic chemicals. It melts into the skin,

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I love that Primally Pure is female founded, conservative, Christian owned. They approach beauty from a skincare first perspective instead of just using stuff to cover it up, right? Use code Alex Clark to get 15% off at primly pure.com. That's primly pure.com. Use code Alex Clark at checkout for 15% off your order. You know, for decades, I think the plastic conversation has really been, at least what I've heard, and I'm in an ignorant bubble on this. You know, save the ocean, save the turtles, recycle your bottle. But almost nobody was talking about what plastic might be doing to the human body. was that because the science wasn't there yet? Or is that because that's the conversation that the plastics industry wanted us to be having?

You know, when we started 17 years ago, we were focused on the ocean, too. And I think that was where people first really started to see the accumulation of not micro or nanoplastics, but of literally like physical, you know, fishing nets and gear and stuff flowing from rivers and off land, you know, into the water. And Captain Charlie Moore, the founder of Al-Galida, one of the founding organizations of this whole movement, and one of the fathers of awareness of this grew up sailing through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. And as the person who identified that and kind of named it as, you know, this issue. And he's one of the founders of our movement and our coalition. And so we all came from that position. I think it was where we first started seeing what basically are the canaries and the coal. mind, right? The turtle entangled in a net. The albatross, baby chick, dead, you know, with its stomach contents just filled with toothbrushes and bottle caps and all our, you know, plastic bits.

The turtle with the straw in its nostril, those moments and those things, and especially the turtle video, like went ultra viral. And awareness really, you know, we came from the ocean. We were made of water, like, these are things that are all connected. I don't think it was deliberate. I think it may be deliberate now to continue to try and keep the conversation on beach cleanups and, you know, pulling our trash out of the water and all, you know, what used to be referred to as marine debris and in some circles still is. But that's part of why we've always said, call it what it is, plastic pollution. The majority of what is now found in the ocean is not, you know, coconut hub. Yes. They're saying like, you know, we're supposed to try to choose wild caught seafood. That's the healthier type of fish to get instead of farm raised. But even the wild caught seafood now has plastic. And they're totally contaminated with plastic and heavy metals and things like that. So now there's companies like Cetopia and they're not a sponsor yet. I would love for you to be Cetopia. Cetopia is farming fish or something. I think I might be getting this wrong. But whatever they're doing, they're making sure that those.

those fish are not contaminated with plastic and heavy metals and stuff. Yeah. And so they're like, they found another way to do things. Now, there are people listening who have never heard of the giant garbage patch. So can you describe what is this garbage patch in the ocean? How did we get it? What is it made out of? Why are we doing it?

What most people have heard about is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is where the ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean all meet and swirl and is considered. a gyre. There are gyres in oceans everywhere on the planet. There is an organization, also founding of our movement and coalition, called Five Jeyers, which has visited and identified the five main gyres, and there are now even more, where the ocean currents swirl, where all of our plastic trash is ending up when it comes off land or off boats or off, you know, cruise ships. Like, it moves around, but it ends up where the currents take it. But are landfills and cruise ships and stuff allowed to dump garbage, you're saying, in the ocean? Allowed. I mean.

They just do it? Well, it happens. I think the cruise ship issue is a whole separate one. But what comes off of land from the majority of places is stuff that is either blowing out of trash cans or trucks or, you know, being just thrown into rivers. So, you know, the majority of what's in the water comes from land. It's not necessarily coming from boats itself. It's coming from land. And those currents that used to be called like the doldrums and those kinds of things like where there's not a lot happening and everything circles there.

Collect our trash. And it's not just floating on the top of the water. It's all the way down the sea column. Like a giant mountain? I mean, it's not a mountain yet. Right? But it is, it becomes what some scientists refer to as a smog because it's breaking down. the sun, the water, everything is breaking down, the bigger pieces of plastic into those micro-nanoplastics.

And it is in the water and it's on the floor of the ocean, right? So it's like in the entire system. That's why there's research saying, you know, that there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the oceans by 2050. Oh, my word. So, yes, you know, it'd be nice for there to be seafood without any microplastics or chemicals or things building up in them. But, you know, the majority of our food chain is, you know, the bigger fish eat the little fish. Sure. Yeah.

So impossible. Right. Well, so I had just assumed if cruise ships have trashed, then they take that off the ship when they park. But are you saying that that doesn't always happen? There's a certain amount of dumping that's happening from cruise ships and tankers and stuff all the time. If a couple is struggling to get pregnant, how seriously should they think about reducing plastic exposure? is part of the bigger picture. Well, number one, they should watch the plastic detox on Netflix,

which follows six couples with unexplained infertility working through exactly that question. And, you know, spoiler alert, happy ending, right? If you ever want to get pregnant, if you ever want to biologically have your own children, you need to reduce your exposure and use of single-use plastics and, you know, the chemicals and plastic. And explain why, like, we're in fifth grade. So wearing athletic clothing, your pretext. body is absorbing the chemicals and the microplastics from those yoga pants, etc. Those chemicals, as I mentioned before, endocrine disruptors, number one, most important related to fertility,

phallates, visphenols, you know, flame retardants, all of those things affect your hormones and your indocrines, which are basically the conductor of a symphony of your body. So, from, you know, inception through birth and development of children in the first two years in particular and as, you know, childbearing age, your fertility is directed and impacted by these endocrines. So, like, they tell your body when to start growing, when to develop, when you develop, you know, when you go into puberty, all these kinds of things. And the chemicals and plastic change that score. They're changing it in ways that are, you know, male fertility is down 50% in last 50 years. Yeah. Like how do you explain that, you know? Right. Besides it has to be

something environmental. So Shauna Swan, the scientist in the plastic detox and in a new film that just premiered in London yesterday called Infertility, all about male infertility, talks about, you know, she also is the author of a book called Countdown. to sperm count zero, which we are heading to by like 2045, potentially. So, like, the future of the human race is dependent on us all working together, not just in this country across the aisle, but, like, globally with international treaties, et cetera, to turn off the tap on plastic pollution. If you had a newborn tomorrow, what is the very first plastic exposure that you try to eliminate?

Anything that goes in their mouth, number one. So bottles, pacifiers. Pacifiers, glass bottles, natural rubber nipples, pacifiers, number one. Toys, so, you know, wood or metal, no paint. And all these things exist, but you know, not everyone can afford them. And that's one of the things we're working to try and change. You know, diapers, obviously, there are many different diapers on the market. Are there any traditional diaper brands that you like and recommend?

or only cloth? The European Union regulates in bans like, you know, more than 10,000 chemicals that, you know, in this country, it's like 11. Oh, yeah. Right. So there are European, you know, disposable diaper brands that are more regulated. I have a 14-year-old daughter. It's been a while since I've had to deal with this. But we have on our amazing staff a couple new moms and young people who are looking to get pregnant.

We have a healthy baby guide, healthy pregnancy guides, you know, how to just get started. You know, these chemicals affect everybody. But in particular, people who want to have children. And we should all have that right and not have it taken away from us by, you know, being impacted by all these things. So I think those are like the top, the bottles and the toys, the diapers, mattresses, crib mattresses. So Naturopedic is a company that's a coalition member and one that, you know, there's a avocado, they are more expensive, right? People are often putting, you know, water resistant or waterproof, you know, cases on their mattresses from babies, you know, having accidents,

stuff like that. That's usually PVC polyvinyl chloride that has thallates in it. What do thallates do? Thallates make plastic soft, but they do a lot of things. But literally in the new research is showing that it's related to preterm bursts. And how does that affect a baby? I think the science is still being figured out, but we know enough that, you know, to not use these things or to act. You know, it's important to recognize that, you know, as the science still develops very specifically on the different health impacts and the different parts of our body and what that all means, that we're, you know, using the precautionary principle, which also is used in Europe, but not in this country, that we know enough that you need to be

careful, right? And you need to act and you need to, you know, proceed with caution and do as much as you can to, you know, not increase what could potentially lead to ADHD or obesity or, you know, early cancers or other, you know, learning issues and those kinds of things because these chemicals and plastics are connected linked to all those things. The two places I had to purge before moving in with my soon-to-be husband, my closet and my bathroom cabinets. The closet was devastating. I made need therapy. The bathroom was surprisingly pretty easy because years ago I'd already gone through the process of getting rid of a lot of my more toxic beauty products and replacing them with the Dell Natural Cosmetics. So instead of packing

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Adelnaturalcosmetics.com. Code Alex for 25% off your first order. Have you noticed that every wellness product now comes with a warning label disguised marketing. They're like, it tastes earthy. Oh, so dirt. It has an acquired taste. Okay, translation, you're going to be lined yourself for three months. You'll learn to love it. No, I won't. If I have to have Stockholm syndrome with my supplements, they are not staying in my kitchen. And so that's why I love cowboy colostrum. So cowboy colostrum actually tastes really good. It's creamy. It frosts into coffee. It's incredible in a smoothie. The vanilla tastes like a vanilla milkshake. The cookies and cream tastes like a cookies and cream milkshake.

Those are so delicious. Oh, the strawberry too. Those are so delicious that, like, you can literally only put a scoop of that in milk with ice and drink it, and it is incredible. I like the unflavored in my, like, more tropical fruit smoothie. That's the one I use there. But, you know, you're getting this whole first milking colostrum collected within the first four to six hours from grass-fed American cows when it's naturally richest in amino globulins and other bioactive compounds. That support immunity and gut health and healthy skin and hair and recovery after workouts. And before the internet starts typing angry comments, yes, the cabs always get their share first.

Cowboy only collects the surplus, so it's always calf welfare before people. Unlike a lot of brands that strip their colostrum down into basically the skin milk version, Cowboy keeps it whole, which is why it's fluffy, creamy, and packed with all the naturally occurring goodness. Go to cowboycloshtroom.com. Use code Alex25 for 25% off. That's Alex 25% off at cowboyclosthum.com. What's actually happening to diapers when we dispose them? They're filling up the landfill. They're being incinerated and turned into air particulate pollution, leaching into the water table. They don't like disintegrate.

No, I mean, that's the thing. So plastic doesn't disintegrate. Part of how we got into this was my sister is an artist who was making work out of plastic because it's so colorful and there's beautiful things printed on it. And you can, you know, make incredible collages and installations and see some beauty. And the same time, it was starting to what she thought was disintegrate. into smaller bits in the frames or, you know, in the pieces, installations that she created.

And she started talking to scientists about it. And they're like, oh, no, it just breaks down into smaller and smaller bits. It doesn't go away. We learn that about polyester in your leggings when you're washing them over time. Yes. That it gets worse and worse and worse.

It's not like, because you just think I've had these forever. There's probably all like worn down. It's actually getting worse, how it's breaking down in your dryer. Yeah. Well, or in your washing machine, too. Yeah. So, and there's now filters for washing machine. There's also things you can put in your dryer to help gather those microplastics.

Really? Wait. I don't know about this. Yeah. There's a few different ones. I don't remember all the names, but some of them are part of our coalition. And we have pretty strong betting criteria for allowing groups to be, you know, businesses. I would imagine. To be part of our coalition. You guys probably run that like the Navy. So, you know, but we need like washing machines to be built with. It needs to be like a regulation that actually they have these. If we're still going to continue to have clothes, have all this in them. I love these ideas. I love the ideas that you have. Do children face a different risk from plastics compared to adults? 100%.

Especially in the first thousand days, first two years of a baby's life. What do you mean? Babies are on the floor. They're on the ground. They're closer. The dust, dust, you know, particles, you know, what is in dust includes the microplastics and the nanoplastics. And so they're closer to it.

The majority of their toys, their clothes, you know, they're eating utensils, all these things. I mean, you're bombarded with plastic stuff when you have a baby. They also are growing. The rates at which they are growing and their brains are developing is, you know, like if we kept growing at the rate that we did when we were infants, like we would all be, you know, I don't know, eight foot tall giants or something like that. So they need more sustenance. And so they are absorbing everything, right, in the same way that they're learning. And their bodies probably cannot detox like an adult. No.

I mean, their bodies are keeping everything. They need everything, right? But they need it even more. And the ratios of things that what might have been clinically, you know, or approved by, you know, the FDA or something like that is, quote unquote, safe is for like an adult male. Right. Not for an infant. So the percentages, the ratios, the exposure is so much greater. What is something that's exposing us to a lot of plastic in our day-to-day that nobody really expects?

The lining in paper cups. So you're to-go coffee in a paper cup, even if you didn't drink through that plastic lid, there is a thin lining of plastic protecting that cup from disintegrating. Same in all soda cans, right? So one of the things in the plastic detox film, and you can also find online and just watch is somebody dipping like a soda can into some acid and pulling it out. And there you can see the thin plastic lining holding the soda. Why did we stop, you know, putting Coca-Cola in glass and stuff? Why did we switch to all this plastic? Well, in a lot of Latin America, it's still in glass, right?

And then Mexican Coke is like considered hipster and is on like menus and fancy restaurants. And they don't have high fructose corn syrup, which I appreciate. As well. I love to get a, that's like one of the times I'll drink soda is if I go to a Mexican restaurant and they have Mexican Sprite and a glass bottle, I love to get that. Part of that is those are generally family run industries. So the collecting the bottles, the washing the bottles, returning the bottles, you know, it's all like franchise or whatever it is. It's not like Coke owns that. They own the syrup, right?

They own the recipe. A lot of those family-run companies, they support their communities. They support their families. You know, they want to keep all those different players supported and thriving. In this country, all the big sodas have been, you know, sold the idea that it's cheaper for them, not only to use high-frictose corn syrup, but also to use plastic for, you know, all their distribution costs, et cetera, you know, you name it. Of the kinds of plastics that still have any.

kind of market value. It's the big liter soda bottles. It doesn't mean it's not so totally bad for our health on the planet and all of those things. Do you ever drink plastic bottled water? Not if I can help it. So yeah, like what do you do for traveling and going through airports or things like that? Yeah. So I always travel with my own reusable cups. Insulated cup. This is a Pirani cup, a women founder, female founder, she and her partner in Asheville, North Carolina. Carolina, swell makes incredible, you know, insulated bottles. Also a female founder. You know, I, I am one of those people who we refer to them as urban packers. If you go camping, you bring your own stuff. Yeah. So in the old days, people also used to travel around with their own fork and knife and napkin and stuff like that. And you do that. You have your own fork and knife. I have my own bamboo utensil set, right? To go where, T. T.O.G.O. is also a coalition member. They've been around for a long time. I have a cloth napkin. I have a stainless steel straw. I have a colleague, the founder of the last plastic straw, Jackie Nunez. She travels with titanium camping plates in her backpack all the time because it's like you never know where someone's going to offer you even a paper plate. And she just doesn't want to use any disposable single-use stuff. Yeah, that's incredible. And, you know, it just requires thinking and planning ahead. And that's really it. But I really do think in some ways,

convenience, putting convenience above other things is really killing us. Why is it absolutely crucial to never microwave plastic? The same reason I talked about just endocrine disrupting chemicals. When you heat plastic, when you microwave plastic yourself, when you get takeout or delivery, Uber eats, whatever, and it comes in plastic, hot food is put in your plastic or even styrofoam in some places. I mean, sometimes you can see that it even melted the styrofoam a little bit, and your food actually tastes a little bit like cyrofoam, which, you know, warning sign don't eat that kind of thing. There is migration. There is interaction. Those microplastics and the chemicals in the plastics are going into your food. If you had a tomato sauce or pasta sauce and you put it in a plastic Tupperware container,

right? It gets oily. It gets a little orange. It dyes it a little bit. You know, I don't know. Anybody still does that. But if you have, like that, that is an example of that transfer. It's being absorbed into the plastic, it's also the plastic is being absorbed into your food. And in particular, black plastics, black plastics have some of like the worst heavy metals and things in them. Is it true that it's melted down electronics? Some of it can be. I mean, you know, we work with folks who do private individual testing of things.

Madesafe certified actually does under non-disclosure agreements with businesses test their products in independent labs for them because you have maybe so many subcontractors, you know, they may say that it doesn't have something in it, but you need to test and make sure. Gen Z is obsessed with DoorDash and Uber Eats to the extent that they're now doing payment plans to pay off their daily doordash. They're literally like putting it on Layaway. I don't know if you know that. You can clarnia your doordash. It's absurd.

Anyway, what is your message to Gen Z who is, literally door dashing. I'm not joking you. My Gen Z co-workers at the office every day they're getting their food delivered hot. What is your message to them? I mean, that's a hard one because you're working hard. You don't have time necessarily to go out to eat. But going somewhere to eat and knowing the people who are preparing your food, you know, there are more and more places and there are pilots and hopefully there'll be bigger systems where it's a reusable container. A lot of them has started with reusable plastic containers. We advocate for reusable stainless steel containers, you know, like Tiffins, like in India, you know, stackable, you know, containers, things like that.

So, I mean, you can, if you develop a relationship with some of the places that you order from, be the person for now who is saying, here's my reusable. I'll drop it off, washed off, you know, please put my food in that. But the other thing I'd say is we all, people need to know how to cook. Oh, 100%. Yeah, you need to know how to cook or pack your lunch. Yeah. But I'm thinking of like they're getting that delivered. It's the hot food and the plastic.

Take it out of the plastic immediately. Put it on, you know, a glass or ceramic plate or a container. Don't let it sit in there. How does plastic impact testosterone levels? The research is showing that sperm count is down 50% in the last 50 years. It is also affecting sperm motility, mobility, erectile dysfunction, analges, genital distance in babies, boys being born with, you know, basically things not all in the right place. All of those things are connected to testosterone, which is the hormone, which is affected by

the endocrine system that tells it when to work, when to expand, when, you know, triggers things. So I don't know the exact details of like, and the research may still be nascent on the direct correlation, but these things are all linked. I also wonder what that blanket is made out of when you have. a baby at the hospital that every hospital gives you. I wonder what material that blanket is. Yeah. I mean, they feel like cotton. I still have my daughters. But yeah, I think, you know, all the fuzzy, mushy, fleece, blankets, pillows, stuffies, cushions, couches.

Yeah, stuffed animals. Parents never think about stuffed animals with their kids. Yeah. And your pets. Yes. Pet toys. I try really hard to buy organic toys for my dog. I'm not all perfect. And they're beds. Yep. Pet beds. So my dog, people think I'm crazy, but my dog only drinks out of glass bottled water. Like I have like stuff like this sitting out by his bowl and that's what he drinks out of.

He never has tap and he doesn't drink plastic bottled water. So people think I'm nuts. But I just try as best as I can to treat my dog the same way I would treat myself or my kids as far as what he's eating and exposed to, you know, cleaning products in the home, all that kind of stuff. And I know people think that's really extra. And maybe it is, but that's fine. I'm willing to live with that. I mean, we installed home house filters, and I wanted to do it for a long time. It's expensive, like, from where the water comes into your home. I mean, having your lead pipes replaced, you know, there was money in the previous administration to replace lead pipes across the country. Some of that money is still out there and being, you know, implemented. But, you know, in the six months before your pipes are replaced or, you know, the whole time before your pipes were replaced. during pipe replacement for six months afterwards, you need to be additionally filtering the water in your home. And even when you shower, what's in your water is being aerated and you're breathing it in.

So primarily what you eat and drink and cook with, you need to, you know, filter. But thinking about like our whole system and the, you know, the entire network of pipes in this country, like there, a lot of those lead pipes are being replaced with polyvinyl chloride pipes, PVC pipes, plastic pipes. The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio a few years ago, that train was filled with PVC, with polyvoyant. Wow. So it was like a double whammy.

And that community is, you know, sick. Very. Yep. I've not forgotten about them. Here's a challenge. Go grab the prenatal vitamins sitting in your cabinet right now. Flip it over. Read the ingredient list.

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Eat prima.com. You can also find Prima bars at Sprouts, Kroger, King Supers and Ralph's nationwide. I think this is one of the craziest concepts in modern health. What is an obesity? Similarly in talking about endocrine disruption and these chemicals, there are chemicals that cause you to become obese or make you fatter. The disruption of your hormones by certain chemicals can not only link to, you know,

autism and cancer and infertility, but they're also. linked to obesity. So plastics and obesity gins can be found in fragrance as well, I believe. Plastics, fragrance could be literally making us fat. They are all linked. Why should people never, ever, buy their clothes from Amazon or Sheehan? People shouldn't buy clothes that are synthetic. We should be all searching for and, you know, supporting cotton, if you can afford it, organic cotton, natural materials, linen, silk, right, expensive. But things, there's lots of different versions of kind of bass materials, hemp and things like that, that are, you know, and people used to wear all this all the time. This is what we were before.

All these petrochemicals were being turned into thread and fabrics. The clothes that you buy from fast fashion outlets are predominantly made with those petrochemical-based materials or entirely made from those. They are not only themselves, you know, toxic, but they're finished with. Like, you should always wash new clothes before you wear it, especially underwear. Because in order to make it, like, look the best to come to market, they finish them with additional chemicals. I didn't know that. And they're often packaged in individual plastic bags as well. Even when they're sent to clothing stores to be sold in retail.

People behind the scenes in retail are ripping everything out of like plastic bags to put up on a hanger in. When people buy these like super cheap clothes like She-in and stuff, where do they typically end up? There's enough clothes on this planet are ready to like, I think, clothe all the people for like more than a few years, right? I mean, the majority of fast fashion is if it's even worn, worn maybe once or a few times, often falls apart much more quickly and gets. thrown away or donated and ends up in, you know, other countries in the global south. You can see film footage, you know, photographs of massive piles of landfilled clothing. They are those are mountains. And sometimes they catch on fire. And so then they're burning molten plastic mountains. People live next to those, you know, mountains of our clothes and trash.

And people, there's an entire informal community of what are referred to as waste pickers who go through those mounds to find things that they can resell or that have some value to help support themselves and their families. Okay. I want to talk about something that I genuinely think is one of like the most, it's one of the biggest corporate PR campaigns. of my lifetime, which is recycling. If I rinse out my yogurt container and then I separate my plastics and I put everything in a blue bin because I think I'm doing the right thing, what actually is happening next? Well, it depends on where you live because in the United States, every town, every city, every community has its own recycling system. And the majority of plastic is not.

recycled. What is considered recycled is generally downcycled or incinerated or shipped to another country. Recycling for metals, for paper, for aluminum even, glass, those things have super high recycling rates and are worth the taxpayer dollar and energy and effort to sort them and have them be transformed back into, you know, a glass bottle can be turned into a glass bottle. bottle again. A plastic bottle is not turned back into a plastic bottle again. I wouldn't want to eat or drink out of anything with recycled plastic anyway, as we've discussed all these other things that are in it only get compounded as well. So I think, you know, it's some of the most cited studies about plastic recycling are, you know, less than 10%. There are some researchers who think in this country it's less than five percent of all plastics are quote-unquote recycled. So when you're in an airport and they've got that trash can thing separated with the different holes. I mean, is there actually different trash cans or is it all going into the same

trash? Because I just think it's all, it's like a fake. Like you, like I'm sticking something in one slot and then some guys coming and it's all being put in the same dumpster and it's going to the same landfill. Am I right or wrong? There are definitely stories of that happening. And as I said, I think it really depends on what city or where you are. But yes, I think it is not a system that really has a lot of trust right now. What is the truth about that little triangle that we see on the bottom of plastic bottles? Yes. That triangle is a resin code.

So those numbers are about the type of plastic. It doesn't mean it's recyclable or will be recycled. It means that that is PET or. a different kind of plastic. But why is that the whole symbol for recycling? Lobbying by the, you know, by industry to have that be the symbol. There's litigation happening across the country about if something can't be recycled or isn't actually recycled or certain percentage of it doesn't get recycled. You can't give people a false sense. I mean, it's greenwashing, right? It's entirely greenwashing to give people a sense that if it has a, you know, a triangle with a number in the

of it means that it can be recycled. Did plastic manufacturers know decades ago that most plastic was never realistically going to be recycled? It was never designed to be recycled. It was never designed to be reused. There's an incredible study, not study, you know, report and and quotes from people in the beginning of the days of promoting plastic that like they're going to make money by people throwing this away. You know, like the future is in the trash can. The future is trash. If plastic was never designed to be recycled completely or efficiently, then why were consumers being told that recycling was the answer? I don't even know how many millions of dollars has been spent on the Keep America Beautiful campaign. You know, the fake crying Indian by the side of the road

is someone throws something out of their car window. Yeah. Wait, that's a sham. It's an evil strategy. It was an entirely a marketing strategy. Explain that. There's an amazing piece and we have a a blog on our website all about this. It's called a beautiful if evil strategy. And that by putting the onus on the individual, that companies could get away with basically, you know, poisoning us and, you know, selling us products that are not in our own self-interest, let alone not in our community self-interest. I mean, all their costs are being externalized. Our taxpayer dollars are paying for not only the recycling sham of plastic, but the health impacts. We're funding our own demise.

Yes, 100%. Is there any plastic that people should bother recycling? Well, so people who make money off of recycling will tell you that, like, I think it's maybe number two. I don't remember exactly that, you know, the soda bottles that can be turned into fleece, which people are still buying lots of that. Those things have market value in most markets. But in general not. It is wish cycling, right? But, you know, for the other other materials, 100 percent, we should all be doing that. And that is beneficial and works. But it doesn't mean that we should still be bought. We need to stop buying stuff in plastic. We need to stop making stuff in plastic. We need to stop making so much plastic. We need to literally turn off the tap. Yeah. When the tub is overflowing, you know, you don't just like mop it up as it, you know, flows out. You literally need to.

to turn off the tap. I hear about plant-based plastic. Is that good? It really depends. So there's a lot of regenerative materials like seaweed algae, mushroom mycelium, etc. that are promising. And there are companies using and making alternatives or replacements for plastic. We have a whole report on it. And a lot of those companies are part of our coalition. Not Pla won the Urshott Prize, N-O-T-PLA. They're using algae as a plastic replacement. But what is the majority of quote-unquote bioplastics, they're just using a different base material. So whether it's coming from corn versus petrochemical oil and gas, but then they're adding a bunch of these same other chemicals to it. Yeah. So it's greenwashed. It's green washed. What about compostable forks? Same thing. Okay. So don't compost those.

Well, it depends on which ones. I mean, the regulations about how you label something and what is compostable, there's something called the green guides that haven't, they're supposed to updated every 10 years. They haven't been updated in more than 12 years now. That is all about like that kind of greenwashing. But if it's, you know, a wood or bamboo or entirely made from some natural material, it could be compostable. Cities are spending like massive amounts of taxpayer money collecting and sorting recycling. If so much plastic isn't actually being recycled, then why are cities still asking us to pay for this? Well, as I said, the other materials are definitely worth it.

But there's still, there's a cost that could be cut with the literal plastic part, right? Sure. But, I mean, as long as we're still all using it and putting it in, you know, our recycling bins and it, you know, was projected to grow. Like, we're already producing like 400 million tons of plastic pollution to use. year and that's supposed to triple by like 2060, right? I mean, we're already drowning in plastic right now. And the projections of how much more will be produced and used are going to triple. Like, we need answers. Part of what happened in this country right before the pandemic was that China said they're going to stop taking our plastic trash. We were sending it to China?

We were sending it to China. So those tankers that would come from China with all the plastic crap that people were buying would be sent back filled with plastic garbage. And what were they doing with it? Most of it they were incinerating it. And then people breed that in. Yeah. Maybe that's why they have all that crazy smog and pollution over their city. You know how they have the worst pollution?

Well, they stopped taking it, what was called the green sword. They like put down the sword, like, we're not going to take your trash anymore. Other countries in the world are. And there's a whole entire illegal trade in our plastic trash. What do you mean illegal trade? Illegal trade. Like which country or company or somebody in some other country around the world is willing to accept a bail or, you know, a shipload of our plastic. Why would they want that? Because in some places you can still make some money off of certain parts of it.

Like third world countries. But then those people are suffering. Yeah. This is crazy. That's why it's why. Well, that's why there is a global plastics treaty being negotiated. Now it continues to be delayed. The U.S. had played more of a leadership role as pulled out. There are over 100 other countries around the world who are willing to lay down a global

law that goes upstream that helps turn off the tap. So let's talk about this because I know for a fact there are a lot of legislators from different states that listen to the show, a lot of politicians that listen to the show, people in Congress, et cetera. On a state level, what would be some ideas or lawsuits even that could be put in place, that could help this problem. So state is where it's at, right? Local communities, when we started the most popular page on our website was how to do a plastic bag ban in my own community.

Great. Like at grocery stores and stuff. Grocerty store. Well, just your whole town. Like no more plastic bags being used by the grocery store, any stores, everybody, like stop the plastic bags. And that exploded. To the point that there are now preemptive banning of bans on plastic bags and some other items. So unfortunately, some legislators took it upon themselves or were supported to ban bans. Because I'm sure the plastics industry was funding their campaigns. 100%. Of course, yeah. Right. So those are now being contested. Hopefully some of those make it to state Supreme Courts or higher to overturn that. I mean, even if you're a libertarian, like you don't

want a preemptive banning of bans. You may not like any bans at all, but are you going to say we're going to ban doing any bans? It's a whole convoluted thing. But a lot of states are pushing for extended producer responsibility, EPR laws, which basically are the polluter pays. So that, you know, the former head of Unilever even was quoted as saying, sometimes I think we're in the plastic trash business or the plastic packaging business. Like they sell all their products in, you know, plastic packaging. So it's like not even so much about what's in the bottle. It's all these bottles. But if you require companies to have to have a plan and a system to take back their bottles, that changes the incentives. That changes the game. Okay. I love that idea.

And, you know, the other thing is when it comes to conventional farming, pigs and stuff are a lot of times eating those wrappers, like plastic trash. That's what they're being fed, like Twinkie wrappers. Our soil, our agriculture system, uses plastic sheeting. What? Yeah, plastic sheeting is a core part of agriculture. What should they be doing instead? Hemp, jute, natural materials that truly biodegrade and are not breaking down into micro-nanoplastics and being part of our soil and affecting the soil health for everything we grow. I mean, there's research now that shows that, like, plants are literally uptaking those nanoplastics into the plant.

What would be the counter argument to people like you who want to limit plastic production? Like, what's the other side saying to you? Like, of why your ideas are bad? I mean, there's incredible uses of plastic, right? Plastic saves lives, right? And in the short term, sure, there's lots of, I mean, your phone, your car, medical supplies, a lot of stuff in hospitals are made from plastic. I mean, we used to use glass, IV bags and rubber tubing. That's all plastic.

rubber gloves, face masks during the pandemic. I mean, there's a lot of things that, you know, are made from plastic artificial hearts, right? There's a lot to be said about reusable plastics being, you know, more helpful in many ways, which is why, you know, when we started 17 years ago, in addition to like saying refuse single-use plastic and calling it what you're it is, we're talking about, you know, all this stuff on the daily basis, like those, those coffee cups, those bags, the straws, right? The straws are a small piece of the puzzle, but they're kind of the key that unlocks the bigger picture, right? It's a very easy thing to say, like, no, straw please, or for a restaurant to just have them on demand or to have ones made of other materials. And there are ones that last and that work better than others. So, and stainless steel ones are, you last forever. Are we subsidizing the plastics industry? The entire plastics industry is subsidized to, well, prop up a dying industry in certain ways as more people move towards, I mean, as I said

before, plastics is plan B for the petrochemical industry. Ninety-nine percent of plastics are made. What's plan A? Plan A is selling oil and gas for cars and ships and planes. Oh, but that's changing as people do these electric vehicles and stuff. Yeah. And, and, and for. find other sources of energy or develop other sources of energy. So that entire industry is subsidized. And they're mad because we're getting rid of food dyes. Food dyes are made from those two. That same petrochemicals. Yeah. So I mean that so all all of the things that are made from that source material in that source industry are part of what is subsidized and they are a core part of plastic. What are your favorite books or movies or documentaries about everything we've

talked about, plastics, recycling, clothing? We have coalition members that are very involved in fashion industry and one of them wrote a book called Unravelled. So highly recommend that. There's actually legislation in a couple different states about fast fashion as well. The plastic detox we talked about, you know, new movie out on Netflix, 100%. There's also the story of plastic that came out a while ago. Pre-pandemic was shown on Discovery Channel in, I don't know, 100 countries around the world for Earth Day. It is literally like the whole background story of plastic that I've described a little bit. There's a new film just came out called Infertility about men's infertility in particular. Books Thicker Than Water by Erica Serino, who is our communications manager, award-winning, beautifully written, incredible book about, you know,

the solutions as well as the problem. But really that like the solutions exist. Not only are there policy and regulatory things we can do, but there are products and companies that they need our subsidies. They need our support. They need our investment. And the regulations need to be changed so that they're not being held back or thwarted as well. One thing this audience is obsessed with is lists of like what to buy, where to go, what to do, stuff like that. And you've said you have a lot of that. So what is the website they need to go to for these resources? So Plastic Pollution Coalition is our website. We have guides for, you know, things to buy room by room.

So what we refer to and are labeled as kind of plastic-free baby or, you know, healthy baby guide or healthy pregnancy guide are really just healthy living guides. And they go room by room through your house. And they have links and references to different products and companies. We also have a guide to getting started. and Grove Collaborative, who's a partner on the Plastic Detox, has a whole website. The majority of that stuff is all better than your typical stuff. Some of it still has some plastic. There are definitely pain points for these companies that things they're trying to solve,

like the plastic pump, you know, little things still get in, you know, that are really hard to replace. I guess you could do metal. Yeah, there are aluminum pumps too. But, you know, there's room for lots of great innovation and it's happening. And they're amazing young people, you know, in school, now or just working to develop, you know, bigger, broader solutions. Awesome.

I ask every guest this to end the show. If you could offer one remedy to heal us at culture, it could be physically, emotionally, or spiritually, what would that remedy be? Slow down. Cook your own food. Buy and grow if you can. Things that you eat from farmers or farmers markets. I think really taking the time to take care of ourselves in that way, like, there's a cost for the convenience of plastic. And so buying less and cooking food from real stuff, as Michael Pollan says, like eat real food, not too much, you know, all of that.

Those things are key. Like, that would be my number one. That's excellent. Julia, thank you so much for coming on Culture Apothecary. Thank you for having me. If you leave this episode remembering just one thing, let it be this. We have spent decades asking what plastic is doing to the planet. Maybe it's finally time that we started asking what it's doing to us.

New episodes come out every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, wherever you get your podcast. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify to support the show. This is a really big one to share to every single person you know and on your Instagram story. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions or decisions related to your health or medical care. I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.