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Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

Plastic is everywhere and for good reason.

It can be cheap, strong, light, bendable, waterproof.

So in recent decades, we've been making a lot more of it. In fact,

over half of all plastic that's ever been made has been made since 2002. Plastic has really advanced what we can do in our culture,

but we have to find ways to make it more safe for human consumption and use.

Dr Sheila Salih Naurina is a pediatrician, an environmental health specialist at the University of

Washington and Seattle

Children's Research Institute and she studies the effects of

plastic on people especially during childhood and pregnancy. She says plastic is

bad for the environment since a lot of it ends up as pollution.

But before it even ends up there, the act of making plastic releases greenhouse gases

since it's made from petroleum.

I don't think that people generally know that.

So when we think about the impact of plastic overall for the environment,

there are huge greenhouse gas emissions that come from plastic production.

And as it's used, plastic breaks down into microplastics and chemicals leach out of it, which can

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