The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last February was a terrible tragedy. While cleanup efforts advance and independent experts closely monitor the health of local residents, fully assessing the situation on the ground takes time. Ideological activists have capitalized on that fact to bolster their decades-long campaign against vinyl chloride (VCM) and PVC. 

Led by the billionaire-backed group Beyond Plastics, a coalition of political agitators quickly descended on the town and launched a media blitz that continues to this day—the goal being to sow doubt about the safety of plastic products Americans use every day without incident. 

The latest salvo in this campaign is a deeply dishonest documentary called “What Really Happened in East Palestine?” With significant input coming from Beyond Plastics, almost every claim the film makes is patently false or highly misleading.

Abusing a tragedy
As a precursor to PVC, vinyl chloride is an essential chemical; it’s used to engineer life-saving medical devices, sustainable water infrastructure and even plastic wraps that prevent food waste. If Beyond Plastics can create enough concern about vinyl chloride, it can lobby for the elimination of all these products. Helping the residents of East Palestine is clearly not the goal, as the press release for the documentary illustrates.

A rare occurrence 

The problems with the documentary begin immediately. Just a few seconds into the film, the narrator claims that the accident in Ohio “can happen anywhere.” But this assessment is completely backwards: the events in East Palestine stand out precisely because they are incredibly rare. There are three primary reasons we know this is the case.

First, vinyl chloride is rarely moved by rail. “In many cases, vinyl chloride is transported by pipeline directly to the plant producing [PVC],” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains. Beyond Plastics kept this critical detail out of the documentary.

Second, when VCM and other chemicals are transported by rail, accidents almost never occur. More than two million carloads of plastics, fertilizers and other chemicals were shipped by rail in 2022. The vast majority—more than 99.9 percent of them—reached their destinations without incident. 

What explains this reassuring safety record? Railroads have very strict safety protocols for transporting vinyl chloride and other chemicals, because they are regulated by the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

This is a trend we see more generally with rail transportation. Data released in 2022 by the Department of Transportation shows that all rail accidents have declined markedly over the last two decades. 

Facts about vinyl chloride

The Beyond Plastics documentary spends most of its runtime on vinyl chloride. We hear from a pair of activist-experts, Andrew Whelton and Judith Enck, both of whom wrongly assert that East Palestine residents have been exposed to harmful levels of VCM and other substances. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), they claim, allowed the public to return home without conducting adequate safety testing. 

But that, too, is false. In July, an independent air sampling study conducted by Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M found that vinyl chloride measurements in East Palestine “over time from both stationary and mobile monitoring indicated levels below long-term health thresholds.” 

Data collected by the EPA in June led federal regulators to the same conclusion. “EPA continues to review preliminary and final air sampling data, which supports air monitoring trends

that air quality has remained below screening levels,” the agency reported. When local news outlets requested an update in August, EPA added that:

“The air and soil in and around the community has been monitored and sampled, and results confirm our confidence that the air and soil in East Palestine and surrounding communities, including inside homes, is not a concern for incident-specific chemicals.” 

All EPA air, soil and water data from East Palestine is freely available online. As of October 2023, the regulator says its ongoing soil testing indicates that “residents can continue to use their properties for normal use, including recreation and gardening.” 

Conclusion

The residents of East Palestine have endured some very trying circumstances over the last eight months. They deserve our sympathy and whatever material resources are necessary to restore their community. As that rebuilding effort continues, Beyond Plastics and its allies should quit trafficking in fear to bolster their anti-plastic political agenda.