While filming a documentary about oceans on a boat in the Pacific Ocean several years ago, producer and director Steve Cowan encountered a shocking scene. “We were surrounded from horizon to horizon by floating plastic,” Cowan said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Cowan and his colleagues at the nonprofit Habitat Media wondered where all of this plastic was coming from—and why so much of it is manufactured in the United States. With “Single-Use Planet,” their new documentary premiering on PBS in April, they hope to answer those questions.
The documentary tells the stories of two states with a major stake in the plastics economy: Louisiana and Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania segment focuses on Beaver County’s Shell ethane cracker plant, a massive facility for manufacturing plastics that began operations in the fall of 2022.
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Since then, residents living nearby have complained about noise, odors and light pollution, and local activists are concerned that Shell is exacerbating the region’s existing plastic pollution problems.
In a previous statement to Inside Climate News, a Shell spokesperson said the company was “committed to the health and well-being of its employees and the surrounding community,” and said the company was working to improve so that it “can be the good environmental steward, neighbor, and business partner this region wants and deserves.” Though Shell was lured to Pennsylvania with more than $1.6 billion in tax subsidies, new research shows that the promised economic boom has failed to materialize.
“There are stories of explorers trying to find the headwaters of the Amazon River, and it takes them to the Andes, to these tributaries way up in the steep slopes of those mountains,” Cowan said. “I liken that to what we’ve done with this story. We took it all the way to the headwaters of plastic to answer, where does this stuff come from?”
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Inside Climate News spoke with Cowan about the origins of the project and what he and his team learned about the Shell plant. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The newly constructed Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, Pa.
KILEY BENSE: How did you decide to focus on Pennsylvania and Louisiana for this film?
STEVE COWAN: Trying to figure out where all this plastic was coming from, our first stop was the petrochemical facilities, these giant ethane crackers that produce plastic from natural gas and fossil fuels. We talked to people that live nearby in these communities, and a lot of the people aren’t too happy with it.
“Single-Use Planet” producer and director, Steve Cowan.
In Louisiana, the [companies] site these facilities in areas with marginalized communities, where they don’t expect there’s going to be a lot of complaints and pushback. That was our Louisiana story, and then we went further upstream, because the Mississippi River eventually becomes the Ohio River through Appalachia. We checked out the … Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, and we talked with community members there, many of whom wish that that plant never arrived.
To feed the plant, they need ethane. It’s an ethane cracker, and that’s natural gas. There’s a lot of fracking that goes on in Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia, and some people aren’t so happy with that either.
BENSE: I think a lot of people don’t realize that plastics manufacturing is fed by fracking wells.
COWAN: We made that connection, and we asked this community, well, how did Shell end up here? If half the people are horrified by it, how did it happen? And they all said, “It was a $1.6 billion subsidy provided by our legislators in our state capital in Harrisburg. They’re the ones that invited … Shell. They’re the ones that championed and enabled the whole thing.” So we went further upstream to Harrisburg and met some of these lawmakers.
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In Harrisburg, talking with these legislators, the biggest part of their funding is coming from fossil fuel, natural gas and petrochemical companies, and so they need that money. We tried in the film not to villainize these lawmakers, in part because it takes so much money to get elected, and average citizens don’t have the kind of cash they need to buy all the TV ads and everything they have to do to win a seat in the House or the Senate or the governor’s mansion.
So they have their go-to sources [of funding]. They don’t even have to go ask for it. The lobbyists are coming in and offering it, and it’s just this low-hanging fruit. Whether it be a subsidy bill or whether it be some kind of law to ease regulations and oversight of the industries, the lobbyists draft the legislation, they take it to the lawmakers and the lawmakers make policy out of them. These are the true headwaters of plastic.
We did meet some lawmakers in Harrisburg that are in the film, like Sen. Katie Muth or Chris Rabb from Philadelphia in the House, and they’re actually more in touch with the realities that a lot of their constituents have to face. They’re in the minority, though. That’s the problem. They vote against this, or they try to get some legislation going to bring in renewables, and they can’t even get the bills out on the floor. They’re powerless because they’re in the minority.
And the reason they stay in the minority is because this river of money is going to legislators who sign on with fossil fuels and plastic. It’s a worrisome thing, and I don’t see how, especially since the last election, it’s going to end any time soon.
A cemetery in Louisiana’s St. James Parish located along a stretch of the Mississippi River known as “cancer alley.”
BENSE: What do you hope viewers will take away from “Single-Use Planet”?
COWAN: Change isn’t going to come from the top down. These people that have figured out how to stay in power, they’re not going to sponsor legislation to lessen the impact of industry or to change our electoral system. Change has to come from the bottom up.
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And that’s actually how it happened in France–they have general strikes. They shut the whole economy down. And it’s forced a lot of reforms in France, and I don’t know if that’s what’s coming to the U.S. or not, but I hope that people realize that they need to get more involved. People need to engage these issues, rather than just going about their daily lives and hoping somehow that their elected representatives in Harrisburg or Baton Rouge or Washington, D.C., are going to do anything about this. They’re not.
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Kiley Bense
Reporter, Pennsylvania
Kiley Bense covers climate change and the environment with a focus on Pennsylvania, politics, energy, and public health. She has reported on the effects of the fracking boom in Pennsylvania, the expansion of the American plastics industry, and the intersection of climate change and culture. Her previous work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, the Believer, and Sierra Magazine, and she holds master’s degrees in journalism and creative writing from Columbia University. She is based in Pennsylvania.
The Iowa Yellow Jackets’s head coach hugs another fan on the field after their victory over the North Desoto Griffins during the Division II non-select state championship football game at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (Staff photo by Enan Chediak, The Times-Picayune)
A Pentecostal pastor in Louisiana charged with sexually molesting a teenage girl in his church has been convicted of indecent behavior with a juvenile – but was acquitted of the more serious crime of statutory rape.
Milton Otto Martin III, 58, faces up to seven years in prison and must register as a sex offender after a three-day trial in Chalmette, Louisiana, resulted in a guilty verdict against him on Thursday. His sentencing hearing is tentatively set for 15 January in the latest high-profile instance of religious abuse in the New Orleans area.
Authorities who investigated Martin, the pastor of Chalmette’s First Pentecostal Church, spoke with several alleged molestation victims of his. But the jury in his case heard from just two of them, and the charges on which he was tried pertained to only one.
That victim’s attorneys – John Denenea, Richard Trahant and Soren Gisleson – lauded their client for testifying against Martin even as members of the institution’s congregation showed up in large numbers to support him throughout the trial.
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“That was the most courageous thing I’ve ever seen a young woman do,” the lawyers remarked in a statement, with Denenea saying it was the first time in his career he and a client of his needed deputies to escort them out the courthouse. “She not only made sure he was accountable for his crimes – she has also protected many other young women from this convicted predator.”
Neither Martin’s attorney, Jeff Hufft, nor his church immediately responded to requests for comment.
The documents containing Martin’s criminal charges alleged that he committed felony carnal knowledge, Louisiana’s formal name for statutory rape, by engaging in oral sex with Denenea’s client when she was 16 in about 2011. The indecent behavior was inflicted on her when she was between the ages of 15 and 17, the charging documents maintained.
A civil lawsuit filed against Martin in parallel detailed how he would allegedly bring the victim – one of his congregants – out on four-wheeler rides and sexually abuse her during breaks that they took during the excursions.
The accuser, now about 30, reported Martin to Louisiana state police before he was arrested in March 2023. Other accusers subsequently came forward with similar allegations dating back further. Martin made bail, pleaded not guilty and underwent trial beginning on Tuesday in front of state court judge Darren Roy.
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Denenea said he believed his client’s testimony on Wednesday was pivotal in Martin’s conviction, which was obtained by prosecutors Barry Milligan and Erica Moore of the Louisiana attorney general’s office, according to the agency.
As Denenea put it, it seemed to him Martin’s acquittal stemmed from uncertainty over whether the accuser initially reported being 16 at the time of the alleged carnal knowledge.
State attorney general Liz Murrill said in a statement that it was “great work” my Milligan and Moore “getting justice for this victim”.
“We will never stop fighting to protect the children of Louisiana,” Murrill said.
Martin was remanded without bail to the custody of the local sheriff’s office to await sentencing after the verdict.
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The lawsuit that Denenea’s client filed against Martin was stayed while the criminal case was unresolved. It can now proceed, with the plaintiff accusing the First Pentecostal church of doing nothing to investigate earlier sexual abuse claims against Martin.
The plaintiff also accused the Worldwide Pentecostal Fellowships to which the Chalmette church belonged of failing to properly supervise Martin around children, and her lawsuit demands damages from both institutions.
Martin’s prosecution is unrelated to the clergy molestation scandal that drove the Roman Catholic archdiocese of nearby New Orleans into federal bankruptcy court in 2020 – but the two cases do share a few links.
State police detective Scott Rodrigue investigated Martin after also pursuing the retired New Orleans Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker, a serial child molester who had been shielded by his church superiors for decades. Rodrigue’s investigation led to Hecker’s arrest, conviction and life sentence for child rape – shortly before his death in December 2024.
Furthermore, Denenea, Trahant and Gisleson were also the civil attorneys for the victim in Hecker’s criminal case.
Newlab New Orleans is deepening its energy-tech ambitions with a new partnership alongside JERA, Japan’s largest power generator, to accelerate next-generation carbon capture solutions for heavy industries across Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, The Center Square writes.
The collaboration brings JERA Ventures into Newlab’s public-private innovation hub, where startups gain access to lab space and high-end machinery to commercialize technologies aimed at cutting emissions and improving industrial efficiency.
The move builds momentum as Newlab prepares to open its fifth global hub next fall at the former Naval Support Activity site, adding New Orleans to a network that includes Riyadh and Detroit. JERA’s footprint in Louisiana is already growing—from a joint venture on CF Industries’ planned $4 billion low-carbon ammonia plant to investments in solar generation and Haynesville shale assets—positioning the company as a significant player in the state’s clean-energy transition.
