By Katie Drews, National Coordinator for AMBR & Co-Director and CEO of Eureka Recycling
The Chemicals of Concern Policy Summit, convened by OPLN, brought together a compelling cross-section of scientists, environmental advocates, industry leaders, and policy experts to tackle one of the most urgent public health challenges of our time: the toxic chemicals embedded in our food packaging, consumer products, and plastic waste streams.
Representing the perspectives of mission-based recyclers, I came to the summit grounded in the day-to-day realities of our recycling system. Our teams see firsthand how the packaging choices made upstream create downstream burdens that recyclers simply cannot solve.
On my panel with Keefe Harrison (CEO, The Recycling Partnership), Aly Bryan (Investor, Closed Loop Ventures Group), and Kate Bailey (Chief Policy Officer, Association of Plastic Recyclers), I emphasized that recycling is a critical public service that keeps materials in use and out of landfills and incinerators.
Recycling Can’t Solve Toxicity—It Can Only Spread It
We need to be honest about what recycling can and cannot do. Recycling was never designed to clean up the toxic, complex, and ever-changing packaging we see today. It’s a recovery tool—not a detox system. When harmful chemicals like PFAS, BPA, and phthalates are baked into packaging design, recycling doesn’t remove them; it carries those toxics forward into new products, into our homes, and into our bodies. That is not a failure of recycling. It’s a failure of regulation and design. We must stop pretending recycling can clean up what should never have entered the system in the first place..
The Science Is Clear: Plastic Pollution Is a Public Health Crisis
One very powerful voice at the summit was Dr. Jane Muncke, a scientist working at the intersection of food packaging and health. Dr. Muncke reminded us that the health risks from plastic-associated chemicals are not hypothetical; they are real, widespread, and preventable. She called out the inadequacy of current regulatory frameworks, challenged the reliance on outdated FDA approvals, and made a strong case for class-based chemical bans and cumulative risk assessments. Her message was clear: we need to stop regulating one chemical at a time and start protecting people from entire classes of harmful substances.
Other speakers echoed the urgency. John Hocevar of Greenpeace spoke passionately about the false solutions being sold to us, such as chemical recycling that only deepen the crisis. He called for immediate action to remove endocrine-disrupting chemicals from packaging and for governments to finally hold polluters accountable.
Dr. Marcus Eriksen of 5 Gyres shared haunting data from 15 years of ocean research, showing the exponential rise in microplastics that is now estimated at more than 170 trillion particles and how those plastics become “toxic pills,” absorbing chemicals and circulating globally through our ecosystems and bodies.
Potential for Federal Action
Joining the summit was U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who listened, engaged, and promised action. His speech acknowledged the chronic disease crisis in America and linked it directly to toxic exposures from food and packaging. He laid out his intentions to reform chemical reviews, closing loopholes like GRAS, mandating cumulative risk assessments across federal health and environmental agencies, and requiring replication of scientific studies and opening public access to toxicological data. Most importantly, he urged industry to help lead the transition, not out of forced obligation, but out of shared responsibility and concern. Afterwards, Secretary Kennedy participated in a discussion on actionable policy pathways for addressing the chemical exposure through toxic absorption from food and packaging.
While Secretary Kennedy’s remarks left me cautiously optimistic, we must be clear-eyed about the broader political reality. We cannot fully address the toxic burden in our bodies, soil, water, and air while the very systems meant to protect public health are being actively weakened and undermined from within. The gutting of the EPA—including the dismantling of programs focused on cumulative impacts and environmental justice—has stalled progress where it’s most needed. And rollbacks to foundational protections like the Clean Air Act threaten to worsen already dangerous levels of pollution. These actions are not just policy shifts—they are setbacks that jeopardize lives, especially in communities already overburdened by toxic pollution. We need a comprehensive approach across our federal government.
Building Momentum for Change
And yet, despite the political headwinds, this summit reminded us that powerful, coordinated action is possible. We are seeing a growing movement of leaders across disciplines. This summit showcased the diverse and great minds and hearts working on these issues, some of whom are bringing to light the science-based evidence of toxicity with precision and urgency, and others who are advancing systems-level solutions to dismantle not just the institution of waste, but the deeper harms it perpetuates.
Looking forward, this was also great grounding for what lies ahead at the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, INC5.2 in Geneva, Switzerland. The summit reinforced the urgency of aligning health, science, and policy, and gave us a clear sense of the stakes, the barriers, and the opportunities. It sharpened our messaging, strengthened our coalitions, and reminded us that to achieve meaningful global commitments, we must keep centering the voices of those on the front lines of exposure, recovery, and reform.
Thank you to Dave Ford, Marta Fiscina, and the entire OPLN/APLN team who thoughtfully designed this summit, bringing together critical voices across science, policy, advocacy, and industry to tackle what is arguably the greatest public health and environmental challenge of our time. The conversations both on and off the stage were illuminating, generative, and grounded in a shared urgency to act. It was a rare and powerful convergence of truth-telling, bridge-building, and forward motion.