1. Chapters 3 and 4 By: Anna Fiorini, Chris Bennett, Lendee Henry

2. The Toy industry  After WWII the baby boom increased demand for toys  Plastics allowed for toy industry to grow  Toy sales increased dramatically  Marketing of brand name plastics  Plastics cheap, flexible, resilient etc.

3. Wham-O  1955 Walter Frederick Morrison perfects Frisbee idea thanks to plastics (polyethylene)  Wham-O takes what was thought to be useless plastics and turns them into Hula- Hoops

4. Polyethylene  Ethylene byproduct of crude oil, was originally burned off  Discovered in 1933  Is lightweight, durable, “stiffer than steel, yet as soft as candle wax”  Many uses  In 1950 found better way to catalyze the reaction

5. PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) - Chlorine mixed with hydrocarbons to form vinyl chloride, then polymerized - Chemically stable, cheap and fire resistant for industries -Releases dioxins and furan, two of the most carcinogenic compounds on Earth.

6. Phthalates - IV bags and tubing - Softening chemical, can block production of testosterone and other hormones - Differ from “environmental villains” mercury and asbestos = direct correlation between exposure and recognizable harm (cancer, birth defects, death) - Endocrine disrupter = how an individual develops, reproduces, ages, fights disease, behaves - More vulnerable to asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, infertility, attention deficit disorder

7. Theo Colborn - Rancher/pharmacist/freshwater ecologist/zoologist, challenged conventional thoughts on theory of toxic effects - Impacts of pesticides and synthetic chemicals on the Great Lakes wildlife - Chicks wasting away, cormorants born with missing eyes and crossed bills, male gulls with female cells in their testes, female gulls nesting together - Findings: effects could be transgenerational, they depended on the timing of exposure, they might become apparent only as the offspring developed

8. Health Care Without Harm - Aimed at getting hospitals to phase out their use of vinyl IV bags, tubing, and other equipment that contained the plasticizing chemical DEHP - Outgrowth of a broader campaign to get hospitals to stop using PVC in general - Won support from influential university-affiliated hospital Brigham and powerful chains like Kaiser Permanente and Catholic Healthcare West - Most major medical supplies offer products that are free of DEHP and PVC