When plastic companies write the lesson plans

This is a story about school curricula, not home energy upgrades, so there's little here that touches your own retrofit plans. But it's worth knowing about if you have kids: a new report from the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition finds that plastics makers have been supplying free or cheap lesson plans, worksheets, and traveling programs like "PlastiVan" to schools across the country. These materials tend to stress how useful and affordable plastic is while playing down its harm to health and the environment, and they often push recycling as the fix even though only about 9 percent of plastic actually gets recycled worldwide.

The report points to groups like the Society of Plastics Engineers and the Dow-backed American Association of Chemistry Teachers as sources of these materials, along with companies such as Shell, which has funded plastics curricula and donated supplies to schools near its Pennsylvania petrochemical plant. Critics say the lessons use technical jargon to look scientific while really promoting industry talking points. The coalition wants school boards to ban materials sponsored by the plastics, chemical, and fossil fuel industries, and to fund schools better so teachers aren't reliant on free industry content. Not everyone agrees a ban is the answer — some educators argue teachers should be trusted to use judgment and even turn industry material into a critical-thinking exercise. Nonprofits like Algalita and The Story of Stuff offer alternative, non-industry lesson plans on plastic pollution for those looking for other options.