Marginalised populations are asymmetrically affected at all stages of the plastics production cycle – especially the extraction of raw materials. Such environmental impacts reproduce and reinforce pre-existing racial and socioeconomic inequalities. This is clearly illustrated in Maceió, the capital of Brazil’s north-eastern state of Alagoas: Since 2019, around 60,000 people have been forced to leave their communities after earth tremors and ground subsidence started to endanger the structures of houses and other buildings surrounding Mundaú Lagoon. Entire neighbourhoods have subsequently been abandoned.