A Glimmer of Hope: Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act Introduced Today!
Today we’ve got a shot at tackling both the climate crisis and the plastic problem.
We can begin by making and using less plastic. By addressing our plastic problem, we lessen the climate crisis.
If you're scratching your head wondering what plastic has to do with climate change, you're not alone. Even environmentalists often view the two as separate issues.
Plastics add to global warming because plastic emits carbon at every stage of its life cycle, from extracting and refining to manufacture and transporting to disposal and waste.
The building blocks to make plastic include oil, gas, and coal. When extracting and refining these fossil fuels, carbon is emitted. During the manufacturing stage, ethylene (used to make polyethylene plastics) releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—and a hell of a lot of it—the same amount that 45 million passenger vehicles emit!
Plastic emits even more carbon into the atmosphere at the final stage of its lifecycle. Every year, the United States alone burns or buries 32 million tons of plastic.
I know how depressing this sounds, but hang in there because the hopeful part is coming. We don’t have to take this on alone. I know the recycling market and environmental messaging has told us otherwise.
They’ve spent millions of dollars influencing environmental messaging to believe every plastic item is recyclable if only we are careful to use that blue bin when in reality more than 90% of plastic isn’t currently able to be recycled. Plastic manufacturers want us to believe solving this problem is on all of us to become more conscious consumers. News flash: plastic is everywhere and in almost every product. Only those with the resources to decipher complex materials and dedicate hours every week weighing consumer decisions have a fighting chance to live plastic free.
Today we flip the script.
The only answer comprehensive enough to impact our plastic problem requires us to hold industry responsible. Instead of burdening consumers with buying decisions that often lack transparency and a broken recycling system, we will require industry to bear the cost of the products it makes for the entire life cycle of the product.
Imagine a world where we never have to make virgin plastic again? What if the industry making plastic products containing plastic were held responsible for the impact of these goods for the entire four-hundred-years of their lifecycle? How would the planet heal if we never asked it to absorb more plastic?
Almost every other industrialized county has done this by passing Extended Producer Responsibility laws (also known as Polluter Pays Principles).
These laws shift the responsibility and cost of managing plastic waste from us as consumers and taxpayers to the producers who profit off of plastics. These laws could either:
(1) force manufacturers to create infrastructure to recycle plastic in a way that could be used to make the same product. For example, the same bottle could be used indefinitely to make other bottles, or
(2) force industry to stop making products with plastic in them altogether (many items that contain hidden plastic could use viable alternatives, including cigarette butts and chewing gum).
If we do nothing, the problem will grow into a full-blown crisis. In the next 10 years, with no improvements to managing waste beyond what’s already in place today, 99 million tons of uncontrolled plastic waste would end up in the environment by 2030.
Today we have a shot about stopping that devastating trajectory. The Break Free Plastic Act is once again being introduced in Congress. This bill contains EPR laws that will reduce waste across our country by phasing out certain plastic products, placing additional responsibility on manufacturers for waste management, and pausing new plastic production.
We need your help to protect our communities and wildlife to create a healthier, more sustainable future for us all. Can you call your member of Congress to ask them to co-sponsor the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act?