CHARLOTTE — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was in Charlotte Wednesday to speak on the issue of plastic contamination in our country’s food system.
Kennedy is looking at a number of environmental and food-based systems where he said Americans, and especially children, come in contact with chemicals he said could be contributing the rise in chronic disease across the country.
“It won’t be easy to change an entire system that’s poisoning America,“ he said. ”I don’t want to drag industry kicking and screaming. I want to ask for an alliance.”
At a conference of packaging, food industry and plastic science professionals in Steele Creek, RFK called for innovative solutions to our reliance on plastic packaging, which he said is hurting our health and environment.
“Microplastics and chemicals from food production and assembly lines and packaging don’t only end up in our food, they end up in our soil, our water, our oceans,” he said. “And from there they re-enter the food supply.”
Research into microplastics, tiny plastic fragments usually from broken-down material, is still in its early stages, but scientists have found evidence those plastic fragments can bioaccumulate in the environment and even in human tissue. Studies have linked microplastics to poor health outcomes like heart disease and decreased fertility.
At the same time, plastic is ubiquitous in our daily lives and especially in food production and packaging to keep food fresh, prevent leaks and provide light-weight, air-tight storage.
Kennedy said his administration will work to incentivize alternatives, but industry leaders need to take initiative when it comes to finding solutions.
Wes Carter, the president of Atlantic Packaging, said his company specializes in finding those sustainable answers. The company, which hosted Kennedy’s roundtable, works with a lot of paper and fiber-based packaging. But when it comes to food packaging, he said biodegradable or recyclable alternatives to plastic require more creativity.
“We’re also innovating a lot of new alternative materials in things like plastic made from seaweed or mycelium or food waste,” he said.
Meanwhile, groups like the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has been involved in numerous cases advocating for stricter regulation around forever chemicals and plastic pollution, are skeptical that Kennedy’s strategies will do enough to address the contamination he’s concerned about.
Mary McLean Asbill, the director of the SELC’s North Carolina office, pointed to recent statements from the Trump Administration’s EPA director, Lee Zeldin, in which he promises to roll back federal protections for streams, rivers and wetlands and restrictions on air pollution, particularly for fossil fuel-fired power plants.
“I would have hope if I didn’t read the newspaper every day and see all the tweets and hear all the speeches and read the executive orders that are completely in contrast to what RFK Jr. has said,” she said.
Asbill said RFK, Jr. and the EPA could work to maintain and enforce strict pollution standards in through the Clean Air and Water Acts and encourage state regulators to do the same.
“I’d like to see more stringent regulations and protections coming out of EPA, and then also from all of our state governments in North Carolina, our state agency has tried time and time again to regulate forever chemicals, and the boards and commissions set up by our extremely anti-regulatory legislature have slow rolled those rules from coming out,” she said.
(VIDEO: NC Supreme Court sides with RFK Jr., orders ballots reprinted without name)
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
