In a plastic pollution crisis, women are disproportionately at risk, making it as much a social justice issue as it is an environmental one. Its negative impacts on women are just one reason we need to reduce plastic production and transition away from single-use plastics to reuse and refill systems.
Plastic affects human and environmental health throughout its entire lifecycle – from water pollution and methane release during the extraction of fossil fuel needed to produce plastics, to microplastic contamination and environmental damage in the disposal phase.
Looking closely at the different stages of plastic’s life reveals how it impacts women more than men. Women experience greater health and economic impacts from plastic production, widening the gender gap and inequities they are already dealing with.
Even plastic itself as a material could be more harmful to women. The thousands of chemicals used in plastic affect men and women differently and must be considered when determining safe levels of exposure. Women have a higher percentage of body fat, which makes them store more bio-accumulating and fat-loving toxic chemicals, like phthalates. Phthalates are a class of chemicals commonly added to plastics to make them more flexible. These chemicals are endocrine disruptors associated with health conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and some types are known carcinogens. Phthalates were found in 86 percent of feminine care products and 98 percent of sanitary napkins tested in China. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found significantly higher levels of phthalate metabolites in the urine of women than in men, likely due to the use of these products.
The United Nations Environment Program notes that as women disproportionately shoulder the bulk of household responsibilities, their exposure to toxic plastic additives has risen alongside the increased prevalence of plastic in daily life. The burning of plastics is yet another source of exposure to dangerous substances like dioxins, carcinogens that cause reproductive and developmental problems, such as increased risk of infertility in women.
In plastic production, labor standards designed with men in mind do not consider women’s different physiology and increased risk from exposure to harmful substances. A 2016 study showed that workers were exposed to mammary carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in workplaces contaminated by dust and fumes. They concluded that these factors place women in the plastics industry at a higher risk.
All in all, the reality is that plastics exacerbate unjust circumstances for women and other vulnerable sectors. Plastic causes real harm and something has to be done to address this.
To reduce the risks to women and girls, there must be systemic changes in policy and the way companies do business. The answer lies in upstream solutions to the plastic crisis, companies need to drastically reduce plastic production, and stop making single-use plastics (SUPs). This can be achieved by instituting reuse and refill systems, as well as single-use plastic bans. By decreasing the need for extraction, cutting plastic production and shifting business models away from SUPs, upstream solutions can prevent negative environmental, social and health impacts before they manifest across the entire plastic lifecycle.
We need the government to enact policies setting targets to reduce the volume of plastic production, ban problematic SUPs and enable a just transition to reuse and refill systems. But even before such policies become a reality, companies can already take action. If they truly believe in protecting women and girls and contributing to efforts for gender justice, they should begin the shift to reuse and refill models immediately. When we cut plastic production and adopt reuse and refill systems, we take concrete action towards making a much safer and just world for women and girls – and our whole society.
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Marian Ledesma is a Zero Waste Campaigner at Greenpeace Philippines.