Plastics have come a long way since that classic one-liner (‘Plastics.’) from Dustin Hoffman’s iconic flick ‘The Graduate.’ Not all of it for the better.

It’s become widely accepted that plastic waste is a gigantic global problem. But is it a climate-change problem, too? Answers to this trickier question are becoming clearer, as these articles demonstrate.

“How the fossil fuel industry is pushing plastics on the world,” Katie Brigham, CNBC. An excellent place to start. The 15-minute video is a little more informative than the text, but either will grab your attention and arm you with lots of useful, though troubling, information.

“How bad are plastics, really? They’re harmful to health, environment, and human rights – and now poised to dominate this century as an unchecked cause of climate change,” Rebecca Altman, The Atlantic. This long, thorough, and intriguing article tells the history of plastics and elucidates the many different problems they cause. (Access to a few Atlantic stories each month is available without a subscription.)

“Fossil fuel industry sees the future in hard-to-recycle plastic,” Deirdre McKay, The Conversation. A short, informative call to see plastic and climate as “two inseparable parts of the same problem.”

“Trash and burn: big brands stoke cement kilns with plastic waste as recycling falters,” Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman, John Geddie, Valerie Volcovici, Reuters Special Report. Burning plastic to make cement? What could possibly go wrong? Dealing with one problem, in this case, creates others, adding both carbon dioxide and toxins to the air.