Tell School District Leaders: Stop Plastic Propaganda in U.S. Schools

U.S. School Boards & Superintendents

In the face of rising public action to end plastic pollution and its toxic impacts, the plastic industry is turning to children’s classrooms to secure its future profits.

The plastic industry’s “educational” materials frame plastic as safe and essential and promote recycling as the solution to pollution. They fail to mention that plastic particles have been found throughout our environment—on the highest mountains, in the deepest ocean trenches, and in our atmosphere—and also in our bodies. They also don’t address plastics’ links to serious health problems including cancer, developmental issues, diabetes, heart disease, infertility, obesity, respiratory problems, and other health harms. By hiding plastic’s true health and environmental harms, the plastics industry aims to delay, deflect, and distract from action to solve plastic pollution.

It doesn’t have to be this way! School districts have the power to stop the plastic industry from infiltrating public education and polluting young minds. Join us in calling on school boards and superintendents across the country to prohibit materials funded by or connected to the chemical, fossil fuel, and plastic industries.

Let’s get Plastic Expelled from school—sign the petition now!


To: U.S. School Boards & Superintendents
From: [Your Name]

Dear U.S. School Board Members & Superintendents,

I’m writing to urge you to prohibit the polluting plastic industry from fueling disinformation in our K-12 public school classrooms.

Plastic companies and industry associations, whose members include some of the largest chemical, fossil fuel, and plastic producers in the world, are funding school programs and educational materials to teach children “the wonders of plastics,” while avoiding the growing scientific evidence of plastic pollution’s health and environmental harms. They aim to curb public concerns about plastics, increase support for local plastic facilities, and recruit a future workforce—all in an effort to further an economy based on fossil fuels and protect their profits.

Plastic pollution threatens the life and wellbeing of children. Plastics contain more than 16,000 chemicals, 4,200 of which are already known to be hazardous to people and the environment. Children living near polluting facilities are especially vulnerable to toxic exposure and its associated life-long impacts. Moreover, in the United States, the health of children is declining as environmental protections are weakened or removed and the plastic industry is allowed to pollute air, soil, water, and human bodies with toxic chemicals and microplastics. According to a 2020 United Nations report, the United States ranked 38th out of the 38 high-income countries studied for children’s physical health.

But the plastic industry’s educational materials tell children that plastic is safe and necessary for their lives, and even encourage them to work in dangerous plastic industry jobs. They also neglect to mention that 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and that plastics are fueling climate change—threatening the livability of children’s futures.

Plastic industry messaging has the ultimate goal of delaying, discouraging, and distracting from action to solve plastic pollution. When the plastic industry is allowed to buy influence in public schools, an acute conflict of interest, they compromise the dignity of education and diminish the public's ability to tackle this global crisis.

I call on school boards and superintendents across the country to adopt a policy that prohibits the use of sponsored educational materials and programs from the chemical, fossil fuel, and plastic industries and identifies and removes existing programs. Funder transparency for educational materials is vital. I support district policy that requires disclosure of the sources behind curriculum and lesson plans used in schools.

District policy must also encourage the adoption of curriculum on plastic pollution that is grounded in the most up-to-date and widely accepted science and frontline experiences to honor the health, lives, and creativity of students.

The plastic industry’s disinformation has profoundly harmful implications for students and does not belong in our schools. I urge you to protect children’s right to health, quality education, and a safe environment by removing plastic propaganda from the classroom.