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EcoRadio KC
EcoRadio KC is a magazine show, including live segments, prerecorded stories, and interviews. The weekly explores our interdependence with the rest of the world, showing the connections between the ways we choose to live and the health of the whole community of life.
We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.
On May 20th, host Craig Lubow will speak with Tom Pelton, Director of Communications for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). The EIP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting public health and our natural resources by holding polluters and government agencies accountable under the law, advocating for tough but fair environmental standards, and empowering communities fighting for clean air and clean water.
https://environmentalintegrity.org/
Tom Pelton is also Co-Director of the EIP Center for Environmental Investigations. He joined EIP in 2014 after working as a journalist for The Baltimore Sun, where he was twice named one of the best environmental reporters in America by the Society of Environmental Journalists. He is author of the book, The Chesapeake in Focus: Transforming the Natural World.
The EIP released a plastics report in March, 2024 which details how taxpayer subsidies of plastic factories are supporting Illegal air pollution in communities of color. The report also exposes the empty promises made by these companies to protect health and environment.
Their report documents that 64% of plastics plants built or expanded since 2012 received government subsidies totaling $9 billion and that 84% of those plants violated federal air pollution limit standards. Those subsidies are taxpayer dollars. Two thirds of the more than half a million people who live within three miles of the plants are people of color.
The investigation found the alarming pattern that the plastics companies repeatedly release illegal pollution, often during malfunctions, breakdowns, and industrial “upset” incidents that release dangerous chemicals. But they seldom face penalties and never have their public subsidies revoked, no matter how frequent their environmental permit violations, which is alarming because the industry is expanding rapidly, and more communities are being asked to consider public subsidies.
Under-reporting of chemical releases from plastic plants is a widespread problem.
Please tune in to hear the valid ideas the Environmental Integrity Project proposes to stop this pollution from the manufacture of plastics.
EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world. Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.
This will be a great radio hour!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
