The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) last week issued the first-ever report out of the White House addressing plastic pollution, “Mobilizing Federal Action on Plastic Pollution: Progress, Principles, and Priorities.”
The report is the culmination of the work of the Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) On Plastic Pollution and Circular Economy, formed in April 2023 alongside the Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever draft national strategy to address plastic pollution. In addition to cataloging actions already taken by the federal government to reduce plastic pollution, the report details federal focus areas for future intervention and clearly outlines that action is needed across the entire lifecycle of plastics (from production to disposal) and at every level of government to tackle the monumental crisis.
“This report is the clearest articulation to date from the White House of the scale and urgency of the plastic pollution crisis and the threat it poses for our ocean and communities. This report reiterates what scientists have been saying about the ocean plastic pollution crisis for years, which is that we need to do it all: produce less plastic across the board, invest in waste management and reuse systems, and clean up what is already in the environment,” said Jeff Watters, Ocean Conservancy’s vice president of external affairs.
Accompanying the report, the White House announced a new goal to phase-out single-use plastics across all federal food service operations and events by 2027, and all federal operations across the board by 2035. The announcement comes two years after the Department of the Interior announced an order to reduce and eventually phase out the sale of single-use plastic products in national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands by 2032.
Dr. Anja Brandon, associate director of U.S. plastics policy at Ocean Conservancy and an environmental engineer, has helped draft landmark state and national legislation regulating plastic pollution in recent years.
“Nearly 40 years of data from Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup show that single-use plastics are among the most commonly collected items polluting beaches and waterways globally. As the single largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, the U.S. federal government has immense sway, and phasing out single-use plastics across its operations will not only cut plastic production and pollution, it will also shift the market to more sustainable alternatives. Especially as the United States is the number one generator of plastic waste in the world, we’re excited to see the federal government lead by example,” Brandon said.
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Rebecca Barnabi
