Key Points
But before all that, it looks like aburning train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio...
The fire cooked off a haul of vinyl chloridethe chemical that makes PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic and is also a carcinogenand bathed the area in aplume of smokeloaded with highly toxic chemicals..
Also on the train were butyl acrylate and ethylhexyl acrylateboth toxic ingredients in plasticsand aslew of other chemicals, which mixed together and burned..
We know full well, though, how to keep trains from exploding and burning up vinyl chloride, and how to reduce the amount of microplastics entering the environment and our bodies..
The nagging issue is that even though companies have to ship vinyl chloride and other chemicals around by train and truck, its still much cheaper to create more virgin plastic than to improve recycling infrastructure..
