during the vietnam war, the us dumped a highly toxic defoliant called the agent orange as a part of their chemical warfare. this occured between 1961-1971. agent orange brings with them dioxins, which are a group of toxins that are very harmful to the body.

one of the reasons why its so dangerous is bcs dioxins are very persistent. they can withstand metabolical degradation, which means once a living being consumes/is exposed to dioxins, they just keep on accumulating.

the effects of agent orange were so bad, years after the exposure babies born in the affected areas were born deformed (extra toes/fingers, cleft palate), people had all sorts of different types of cancer, the environment was stripped raw-- it was disastrous.

in november 2019, IPEN analyzed egg samples from free range chickens in tropodo and bangun, indonesia. these places were where most of the waste we imported from foreign countries ended up. remember when SEA countries made the news by sending trash back where they came from?

1 of the reasons indonesia sent them back is bcs the trash didnt comply with the rules, but this is also bcs of the sheer volume. people LIVE alongside trash. so villagers started burning them, just to reduce the volume. which is just bad. because incomplete burning of-

trash results in dioxins, which we have established to be very bad. the level of dioxin contamination was found to be 200 pg/g fat. in vietnam, it was 248 pg/g fat. we're the second highest in contamination, after a country whose contamination was literally caused by a war.

plastic waste is a systemic problem. western countries like to blame climate change on third world countries like us, but in reality, they also contributed as much. i honestly dont know where to go from this, rn im just filled with contempt.

something has to be done, regulations wise. incineration plants need to be better. the system of waste management itself needs to change. until that is done, plastic waste will continue to poison our planet.