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. 

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?” 

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.  

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Louisiana voters scorned four constitutional amendments on ballots Saturday with a decisive “no” vote on all the measures from many parishes across the state.

The results set tongues wagging among politicos and advocates through the weekend, who are now working to break down what doomed the amendments — and in some cases, how to capitalize on that success.

The proposals included potential constitutional changes on specialty courts, taxes, how teenagers are prosecuted and more. The most closely watched result was Amendment 2, which included a sweeping tax revamp championed by Gov. Jeff Landry.

After a review of returns and turnout, results were likely driven in part by “Democratic anger” against Landry, or perhaps even President Donald Trump, one pollster and analyst said.

“When you saw a party line vote like that for all four amendments, you really cannot escape that conclusion that you just had this big, massive ‘no’ vote,” said John Couvillon of the firm JMC Enterprises of Louisiana/JMC Analytics and Polling.

The governor’s aides did not immediately return a request for comment.

Couvillon explained that constitutional amendments tend to be lower-profile contests in Louisiana, often getting a bit lost down ballots. But he felt something notable was happening when reviewing turnout from early voting, which showed significant engagement from Louisiana’s Black and Democratic voters.

The conventional wisdom from some was that election-day turnout could reverse that, he said. Instead, the opposite happened, including a turnout spike in progressive stronghold Orleans Parish that was about 10 points above the rest of the state, even without local races.

Other factors in play included rural parish voters, whom he said tend to be “very suspicious” of tax changes. Some evangelical leaders also had come out against Amendment 2, fearing it would lead to taxes on churches.

“When I saw that that message was allowed to percolate without an adequate pushback from the governor’s side, that’s a powerful constituency to antagonize,” Couvillon said.

Underperformance from Republican voters also “sealed the deal” on Saturday. He pointed to returns from higher-income areas, such as Jefferson Parish, against Amendment 2 as an early indicator.

Overall, he said the results could lead to a reset from the governor’s team.

“I think the context has changed for Governor Landry in terms of four unequivocal losses, which is two to one ‘no’ votes on every single amendment,” Couvillon said. “That’s a pretty significant cut that he has to find a way to kind of, I guess, regroup, for lack of a better term.”

The results were widely interpreted as a political loss for Landry, who distributed a statement late Saturday night that seemed to express pique with the results.

“The primary goal of Amendment 2 was to create a better opportunity for our citizens. To work towards inviting people into our State rather than have them leave. Unfortunately, [George] Soros and far left liberals poured millions into Louisiana with propaganda and outright lies about Amendment 2,” Landry said.

The governor added that “positive change” is a challenge to implement in a state that is “conditioned for failure.”

The business lobbying group Louisiana Association of Business and Industry supported all the amendments except Amendment 3, a measure on youth prosecution on which it took no position. The group said over the weekend that it would continue to advocate for tax code reforms.

“Saturday’s result on constitutional Amendment 2 makes clear the need to return to the drawing board in order to build consensus on such a critical issue that impacts every Louisianan,” the group said in a statement on behalf of its president and CEO, Will Green. “While this outcome isn’t what we had hoped for, we remain deeply motivated to build on the achievements of the past year.

“Our commitment to ensuring that Louisiana’s citizens and job creators receive the fair, straightforward tax code they rightfully deserve remains stronger than ever.”

In advance of the election, the amendments drew visible opposition in the form of signage, media appearances and get-out-the-vote efforts from grassroots, advocacy and policy groups across the state, including the ACLU of Louisiana, the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice and others.

The amendments’ opponents celebrated a win over the weekend, particularly in a state climate that is often viewed as dismal or difficult for the political left.

“Tonight’s vote sends a resounding message that the agenda behind these amendments never had a mandate and that voters are sick of being lied to, shut out and taken for granted,” the “No to Them All” coalition, which opposed the amendments, said in a statement. “If our elected leaders want to make changes to our constitution in the future, we the people of Louisiana have two words of advice for them: ‘Do Better.’”

The election results likely moot a legal challenge pending in East Baton Rouge Parish to Amendments 1 and 3, which had argued the process by which they were placed on ballots was unconstitutional.

That lawsuit was filed by a group of voter plaintiffs from around the state and Voice of the Experienced, the advocacy group led by formerly incarcerated people.

VOTE said in an Instagram post over the weekend that officials tried to push through “shady constitutional amendments in a low-turnout election, but the people were watching.”

“This is just the beginning. We showed up, and we’re not stopping now,” the group wrote.

This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.  

Louisiana residents who live north of the US 190 Corridor that bisects the state from east to west will need to be weather-conscious for at least the first few hours of this Monday morning. The Storm Prediction Center has posted a severe thunderstorm watch for this part of the state that will remain in effect until 8 this morning.

The storm system that is creating all of the strong storms and severe weather has already produced several “warned storms” in the overnight hours. It does appear as though that trend will continue for at least the next four hours.

Just before 4 this morning the weather service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of Evangeline and Allen Parish. And by looking at the screen capture of the radar scan from that time, it’s pretty easy to see where the strong storms are.

If current forecast guidance is correct the heavier showers and storms should stay well north of Interstate 10 this morning. That doesn’t mean you won’t see a shower or storm between Lafayette and Lake Charles and Lafayette and New Orleans. It just means that the heaviest storms should stay well north of the area.

There is also a good possibility that portions of the region will experience excessive rainfall over the next several hours as well. Again, the area under the greatest threat will be US 190 and north but heavy downpours could happen anywhere, including along I-10 as the morning progresses.

The threat of heavy showers and showers, in general, should move out of the area around 9 this morning. Skies should remain cloudy with slightly cooler temperatures for the day on Monday. Calmer conditions should prevail across the area for the bulk of the work week but Wednesday and Thursday could be complicated by gusty winds.

The next major threat of rain in South Louisiana will come unfortunately in time for next weekend.