What are plastics actually doing to our bodies—and why is so much of the conversation focused on individual choices? In this episode of HEATED, Emily Atkin interviews Dr. Shanna Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist whose research on chemicals in plastics—like phthalates—has linked them to fertility problems and changes in reproductive development. The conversation is anchored in the new Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox, which follows couples attempting to reduce their plastic exposure in order to conceive. But we go beyond the individual-level “detox” framing to talk about the larger systems that made this problem so widespread.
