Scientists urge United States to combat plastic pollution through nationally coordinated strategy

03 Dec 2021 --- The US must create a national action plan to reduce its contribution to global plastic marine pollution. Its current infrastructure is “grossly insufficient,” according to a new report by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

The report, titled Reckoning with the US Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste, recommends the US establish a nationally coordinated and expanded monitoring system to track plastic pollution to understand the scale and sources of the plastic waste problem, set reduction and management priorities, and measure progress in addressing it. 

Worldwide, at least 8.8 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year – the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic into the ocean every minute – and in 2016, the US generated more plastic waste than any other country, exceeding all EU member states combined, says the report. 

Speaking to PackagingInsights, Greenpeace’s ocean campaigns director John Hocevar, says: “The report provides an accurate snapshot of where we are today and a wake-up call that should inspire us to get our act together. Many of the largest corporate plastic polluters are based in the US.”

“Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Procter & Gamble are regularly in the top five polluters in annual brand audits of trash collected from all over the world. The US has yet to ratify the Basel Convention and is one of the world’s largest exporters of plastic waste to the Global South.”

The US’ “broken” recycling system 
The report says today’s recycling processes and infrastructure are “grossly insufficient” to manage the complexity and quantity of plastic waste produced. A large portion of plastic waste is disposed of in landfills. 

Recycling systems in the US are insufficient to deal with the plastic waste crisis, says the report.While the US solid waste management system is relatively advanced, the report’s authors conclude there is a need and opportunity to expand and evolve municipal solid waste management to ensure the country better manages plastic waste and serves communities and regions equitably, efficiently and economically.

“Plastic waste is an environmental and social crisis the US needs to affirmatively address from source to sea,” says committee chair Margaret Spring, chief conservation and science officer at Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“Plastic waste generated by the US has so many consequences – impacting inland and coastal communities, polluting our rivers, lakes, beaches, bays, and waterways, placing social and economic burdens on vulnerable populations, endangering marine habitats and wildlife, and contaminating waters upon which humans depend for food and livelihoods.”

This year, the Recycling Leadership Council concluded the US recycling system was at a “breaking point” with almost 10,000 different systems of recycling currently existing in the US, and a lack of information and financial impetus hindering effective unification.

National strategy needed 
The report recommends the US establish a “coherent, comprehensive, and crosscutting” federal policy and research strategy to reduce its plastic waste contribution to the environment and ocean. This strategy should be developed by a group of experts, or an external advisory body, by the end of 2022. The report asserts the strategy’s implementation should be assessed by the end of 2025. 

Recognizing US action to date, no single solution will be sufficient to address the problem, the report says, and therefore the national strategy should employ a suite of interventions at every stage of plastics’ flow into the ocean. It should also build on efforts underway, fill gaps in coverage, and apply lessons learned in the US and other countries.In 2016, the US generated more plastic waste than any other country on earth.

Hocevar emphasizes industry must take a pivotal role in helping achieve these aims. 

“The industry must design for reuse. As long as companies continue to rely so heavily on throwaway packaging, plastic pollution will worsen. This is a cumulative problem – each new plastic package they produce will be with us in one form or another for generations.” 

“As industry shifts away from single-use, it should also design for recyclability. In the US, only PET and HDPE bottles and jugs are widely recyclable. Everything else – the polypropylene yogurt cups, all that flexible plastic, the small items, the multilayer packaging, and so much more is usually going to be dumped or burned.”

“Change is already happening and will speed up quickly in the coming years as new regulations are adopted and companies respond to consumer pressure. There is a lot of money to be made by packaging companies providing scalable reuse approaches.” 

US global treaty U-turn 
Recently, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the US would support a global treaty on plastic pollution at a UN climate summit in Kenya, marking a U-turn on the Trump administration’s stance. 

Blinken says the treaty, which will be discussed at an international meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, next year, must “call on countries to develop and enforce strong national action plans to address this [plastic pollution] problem at its source.” 

Environmental campaigners, including Greenpeace, are expressing cautious optimism a treaty could enact real change on global waste management. 

By Louis Gore-Langton

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