AmericaSpeaks TheVoiceOfJoyce How is it possible to degrade plastic and claim it’s a biofuel? The EPA has granted Chevron a license to produce “biofuels “ out of plastics? The thought of using plastics as a biofuel is obscene, according to Linda Birnbaum, a former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Though wasteful, ethanol from corn, is a biofuel. Approximately, 10 yrs ago, at an NYU Entrepreneur Conference, an entrepreneur wanted to use sugar beets for biofuels. No one was interested. When I was in Israel, visiting Technion, one of the scientists, had developed a biofuel from Canola plants, that could be grown in the desert. No one was interested. When do we stop funding existing petroleum based products? Our lives depend upon us using renewables.

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www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/climate-friendly-us-program-plastics-fuel-cancer

The Environmental Protection Agency recently gave a Chevron refinery the green light to create fuel from discarded plastics as part of a climate-friendly initiative to boost alternatives to petroleum. But, according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and the Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, one out of four people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.

“That kind of risk is obscene,” said Linda Birnbaum, former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “You can’t let that get out.”

That risk is 250,000 times greater than the level usually considered acceptable by the EPA division that approves new chemicals. Chevron hasn’t started making this jet fuel yet, the EPA said. When the company does, the cancer burden will disproportionately fall on people who have low incomes and are Black because of the population that lives within three miles of the refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

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