What Plastic Reduction Policies Might Help Protect The Environment From Pollution?

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You know those entertaining videos you love to watch of whales surfacing and diving? Of dolphins breaking through the frothy waves? Of seabirds skimming the ocean’s surface? Of endangered turtles laying eggs on a barrier beach? Their lives are threatened everyday by the estimated 15 million metric tons of plastic waste that end up in the ocean annually. Instead of a mysterious deep habitat, the ocean is now a trash heap. If we don’t make plastic reduction policies a priority, we may decimate the marine creatures we love so much.

Plastics are turning up in the stomachs of whales, birds, and other animals that ingest them. That’s because, as the plastics are tossed about in the white caps and currents, plastics break into tiny pieces, called microplastics. These small particles have a toxic effect on fish and other aquatic life, including reducing food intake, delaying growth, and causing oxidative damage. Microplastics often penetrate the marine animals’ biological barrier and accumulate in tissues, affecting life at the molecular level.

And it’s not just the ocean’s creatures that are being affected by plastics. Because fossil fuels are the main feedstock for 99% of plastics, they have greenhouse gas and climate impacts similar to other fossil fuel-based industries.

More than 16,000 chemicals are used in manufacturing plastics, and at least 4,200 of these have been identified as hazardous to human health and the environment. Thousands more chemicals used in plastic production have never been tested. Many of these chemicals migrate out of plastic packaging into our foods, drinks, household products, and bodies.

The need to develop a common understanding of what constitutes a healthy, circular economy for plastics must be developed and implemented — soon.

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Plastics are widely used around the world due to ease of manufacturing, low cost, stable chemical properties, and good water resistance. It has become clear that habitual plastic daily use in all economic sectors has a serious cost to public health and the environment. It requires significant and immediate action, since the exponential increase in plastic production and consumption has outpaced society’s ability to properly manage this increasingly complex material.

We need to scale innovative solutions to holistically address its impacts and infuse widespread plastic reduction practices at the micro- and macro-levels.

The most effective way to address the harms from plastic is to rethink plastic production. In a July 2024 report the Biden-Harris administration acknowledged that tackling plastic pollution and its associated impacts “will require unprecedented action at every stage of the plastic lifecycle.” That would mean reining in the pollution from petrochemical production that is poisoning communities and driving climate change, reorienting infrastructure to ensure dramatic increases in recycling and reuse, and investing in innovative materials to replace the pervasive use of plastics in our society.

Already federal departments and agencies within the Biden-Harris administration are working to reduce single-use plastics in government operations, drive down toxic emissions and chemicals of concern in plastic production, and fund investments to improve solid waste management while cleaning up existing pollution. These early steps are important for building momentum for the scale of action and progress needed across all levels of government to address plastic pollution and its associated impacts.

But will such forward-looking plastic reduction plans be part of the next administration? As we know, Harris and Trump have entirely different perspectives on the fossil fuel industry, and, as it’s been made evident — over and over — the influence of the fossil fuel industry on politics presses on both the Democratic and Republican parties.

What would an Agenda for Reducing Plastics for the New US Executive Office Look Like?

Beyond Plastics has released a 27-point agenda to guide the winner of the November presidential election toward important plastic reduction policies. The agenda reinforces the global plastics treaty that is in the works and which aims to cut down on the 15 million metric tons of plastic that end up in oceans each year. It would also reduce human exposure to thousands of hazardous chemicals used to manufacture plastic.

Mario Loyola, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an associate director of regulatory reform under Trump during his presidential term, told Politico that the Republican nominee would likely be “skeptical” that the treaty to reduce plastic pollution “was the best agreement that could have been reached.”

Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, said the next US president “has an opportunity—and a responsibility—to prioritize people and the planet over industry profits, and finally require companies to kick their toxic plastic habit.”

The Bennington College group recommends a series of ways that the next US president can reduce the production of plastics by 50% over the next 10 years. That number isn’t arbitrary: the annual plastic pollution is currently projected to nearly double by 2040.

Executive actions proposed by Beyond Plastics include:

• A moratorium on new permits or renewing permits for petroleum refining, petrochemical plants, and other facilities that produce plastics and their precursors;
• A national moratorium on the construction of chemical recycling facilities, which generate hazardous wastes, toxic air pollutants, and greenhouse gases, and are primarily sited in environmental justice communities;
• A ban on the shipping of plastic waste to other countries, following the shipment of 900 million pounds of plastic abroad in 2023;
• An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ban on vinyl chloride, the carcinogenic chemical that created a public health hazard in East Palestine, Ohio in 2023 after a Norfolk Southern train derailed;
• Department of Justice investigations into the plastic industry’s health impacts on communities near processing and manufacturing plants, its role in pollution on public lands, its “false and misleading claims about recyclability and recycled content of plastics,”
• Methods to stop plastic pollution in waterways and oceans; and,
• Leadership from the Department of Labor to achieve a just transition for workers in the plastics industry, with employees provided with job training and placement.

The group also called on the next administration to push for the passage of a strong national packaging reduction bill. It would require:

• a 50% reduction in plastic packaging over 10 years;
• the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act; the Farewell to Foam Act, which would phase out plastic foam food containers, disposable foam picnic coolers, and packing “peanuts”; and,
• laws enabling local governments, states, and businesses to apply for federal funding to develop waste reduction, reuse, and refill programs.

This full lifecycle approach is a critical to confront and begin to solve plastic pollution.