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Plastics

A Hunger Strike Ends, but an ‘Unreasonable’ Woman’s Battle Against Corporate Polluters Marches On

Four decades into her crusade against Texas petrochemical plants, a retired shrimper remains determined to fight Dow, the largest chemical company in America.

Story and photos by Dylan Baddour

 Diane Wilson sits in her tent, 14 days into her hunger strike, outside Dow’s Seadrift complex on March 16.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin (left) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announce the EPA’s draft Contaminant Candidate List on Thursday in Washington, D.C. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

EPA Flags Microplastics as ‘Priority’ Water Contaminants, but the Move Doesn’t Guarantee Regulation

By Anika Jane Beamer

After Chemical Industry Lobbying, EPA Considers Dropping Clean Air Protections for Plastic Waste Recycling 

By James Bruggers
A plastic Starbucks cup.

Your ‘Widely Recyclable’ Starbucks Cup Is Still Trash

Joseph Winters, Grist
The 4,700-acre Seadrift Operations complex produces various plastics as well as chemicals for antifreeze, paints, detergents, shampoo and other beauty products on the Gulf Coast in Calhoun County, Texas. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

Dow Asks Texas to Legalize Plastic Pollution From Its Seadrift Complex

By Dylan Baddour
A view of Dow’s Seadrift chemical complex from the Victoria Barge Canal in Texas on Feb. 1. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

Texas Alleges ‘Habitual Non-Compliance’ of Wastewater Rules at Dow Chemical Complex 

By Dylan Baddour
Colorful array of fish being sampled for microplastic contamination in Funafuti, Tuvalu. Credit: Dr. Brian Stockwell/The University of the South Pacific

One-Third of Pacific Island Fish Contaminated With Microplastics

By Johnny Sturgeon
A worker fries tofu over a furnace fueled by a combination of plastic waste, wood and coconut husks at a tofu factory on May 22, 2025, in Sidoarjo, Indonesia. Credit: Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images

Burning Plastic Waste for Household Fuel Endangers Millions 

By Liza Gross
Demonstrators attend a Stand Up for Science rally to highlight the critical role of science in public health, environmental stewardship and education at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco on March 7. Credit: Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

The Year in Climate: Attacks on Science, the Start of Trump’s Second Term and Surging Electricity Demand Foreshadow a Future Filled with Uncertainty

By Dan Gearino, ICN Staff
Diane Wilson outside the Formosa Plastics plant in Point Comfort, Texas, in November 2021. Credit: Mark Felix/AFP ia Getty Images

Diane Wilson Takes on Another Plastics Plant in Texas

By Dylan Baddour
A volunteer from the Ecological Observation and Wetlands Conservation collects plastic waste from a mangrove swamp on July 26 in Surabaya, Indonesia. Credit: Juni Kriswanto/AFP via Getty Images

Peeling Back the Curtain on Big Plastic’s False Solutions 

By Liza Gross
In 2021, Dr. Robert Bullard, from right, talks with Fifth Ward residents Water Mallett, Doris Brown, then-EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner during Regan's tour of Houston to highlight environmental justice concerns. Credit: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Petrochemical Expansion in Texas Will Fall Heavily on Communities of Color, Study Finds 

By Dylan Baddour
An aerial view of trucks unloading and spreading trash over a hill at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, Calif., in February 2024. Credit: Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

California Is Finally Updating Its Methane Landfill Rule

By Liza Gross
An Indigenous Guna scientist monitors a nesting leatherback sea turtle on a beach in Armila, Panama. Credit: Teresa Tomassoni/Inside Climate News

Deadly in Small Doses: New Research Shows the Lethal Effects of Ingested Plastic on Marine Animals

By Teresa Tomassoni
A view of Formosa Plastics’ Point Comfort complex, near the site of Exxon’s planned plant on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News

Exxon Steps Back From Texas Gulf Coast Plastics Plant

By Dylan Baddour
Plastic pellets, known as nurdles, coat the ground at the site of a train derailment near ExxonMobil’s Baytown facility in Texas on Dec. 6, 2024. Credit: Rebekah F. Ward/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Communities Around the World Find Plastic Pellets in Their Local Waterways

By Lauren Dalban
The Three Rivers Waterkeeper found tiny “nurdles” in the water and banks of Raccoon Creek in western Pennsylvania. Credit: Three Rivers Waterkeeper

Pennsylvania Plastics Pollution Settlement Could Set a National Precedent for Control of Pellets

By Jon Hurdle
Along Texas' Gulf coast, the oil and gas infrastructure in Corpus Christi. Credit: Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Corpus Christi Folds on Its Desalination Gamble

By Dylan Baddour
People walk a beach along Lake Michigan in Whiting, Ind. Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Great Lakes Microplastics Research Could Inform National and Global Policy

By Sarah Mattalian

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