🚨54M K-12 Students Exposed to Plastics Propaganda

Plastics Industry Sneaks into Classrooms

The plastics industry is inserting its agenda into US classrooms, offering free or cheap educational resources that emphasize the benefits of plastics while downplaying significant downsides to human health and the environment. This includes SPE's 'plastic scavenger hunt' and Dow Chemical's 'plastic bag strength' lessons. The Plastic Pollution Coalition is pushing for stricter school policies to ban industry-sponsored learning materials. Since 2009, plastics trade groups have lobbied to add sections on the advantages of plastic bags to state textbooks. SPE's PlastiVan initiative has reached over 132,000 students since 2011. The report highlights the broader issue of STEM education in US public schools, where teachers often lack time and resources to design their own curricula.