​​Mark Ruffalo is not a fan of President Trump.

The American actor, who is well known for his political and environmental activism, tells Sky News: "The world should consider my president public enemy number one."

Image: The chemical PFOA is said to be in 99% of the population While Rufallo's latest film, legal thriller Dark Waters, doesn't directly involve Donald Trump , the 52-year-old star thinks there are stark parallels to be drawn with his leader's climate change denial.

Directed by Todd Haynes, the movie tells the true story of one man's fight against chemical company DuPont - the creators of Teflon.

The company repeatedly denied dumping toxic waste that contaminated the air, water and inhabitants of West Virginia over a period of decades.

Advertisement The pollution would eventually cross the world, resulting in the chemical PFOA 9 Perfluorooctanoic acid -also known as C8 - finding its way into in 99% of us.

In layman's terms, this means that virtually every living thing on the planet has it inside their body.

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He's very clear: "The world should consider my president as public enemy number one at this point.

"What we do in the next 10 years will be crucial to the future of the planet. And this is only going to become more and more evident to us."

Image: Twenty years after the fight began, cases are still being heard in court The film is based on the New York Times Magazine article The Lawyer Who Became Dupont's Worst Nightmare, and Ruffalo says he knew he wanted to be part of the project from the off.

"When I read it in The New York Times Magazine I was so blown away by it, by the depth and the scope of it.

"I couldn't believe I wasn't reading about it on the cover of The New York Times, that it wasn't on the cover of every major publication in the world."

He immediately contacted the subject of the article - Ohio attorney Rob Bilott - to probe him for more information, and take the first steps into turning his story into a film.

Ruffalo is a veteran of the biographical drama, and so knows the power of films for "getting out information".

He starred in the 2015 Oscar winning drama Spotlight, telling the story of investigative journalists uncovering sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in Boston.

But Dark Waters tells a story of a different kind of abuse - corporate abuse on a massive scale.

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Ruffalo says it's thanks to Bilott - who he plays in the movie - "and this beautiful community of people who fought for 20 years to get justice" that the film was able to be made.

Ruffalo now hopes it will "tell the rest of the world what every major publication should have done 10 years ago, but failed to do".

Despite Bilott's work, Ruffalo is incredulous that more action hasn't been taken to protect people from toxic waste.

"This class of chemicals are still unregulated, even though the biggest health study in human history - 70 thousand people - was done on this chemical, it's the most studied chemical in the history of chemicals.

"It's definitively linked to seven different major diseases including testicular cancer and kidney cancer.

"We still don't have any regulations. And it's an outrage. And the only reason we don't, is because we didn't know what was happening. But now we do."

Image: Ruffalo says the story should be on the cover of every major publication in the world Ruffalo compares it to the fossil fuel industry who he says have been "hiding climate change", as well as pointing the finger at "food systems, the tobacco industry, the opioid crisis and pharmaceuticals".

He goes on: "It's the same story over and over again. We're being harmed so someone else can make a s***load of money. And what the movie says is, it's up to us.

"We can't rely on the politicians. We can't rely on the regulatory system. We can't rely on the companies. They're not going to self-regulate."

Ruffalo describes it as "a crisis exploding all around us" - but he can see hope.

Image: Ruffalo says Greta Thunberg is a 'superhero' "There are superheroes, there's Rob Bilott, Greta Thunberg , Extinction Rebellion."

It is now nearly 20 years after Bilott began fighting the case in the courts, and he is still fighting for those he believes have been harmed by PFOA.

But Ruffalo believes it's a cause we must all support: "We have to be involved. We have to be part of this. We have to demand that these systems take care of us and value us and not just the dollar. It's an important time."

"We have to make people uncomfortable. We're going to have to get radical. We're going to have to have peaceful demonstration, peaceful protest, peaceful actions that stop this."

Dark Waters in in UK cinemas from Friday 28 February.