500 pressure groups set plastics pollution agenda for Biden

Incoming American president Joe Biden has his work on the environment cut out.

Apart from ensuring the full implementation of his much-touted $2 trillion green deal and taking the United States back to the front-burner of climate action, he also under scrutiny to appoint key members of his administration with little ties to fossil interests.

Now, there’s another demand.

Over 500 environmental and pressure groups have unveiled a tough plan aimed at taking out plastic pollution.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. plastic recycling rate is an anemic 8%. Instead, more than 90% of plastics in the United States is buried, burned or released into the environment.

Thus anti-plastic pollution groups say the time has come for the next American president to push a new agenda through a new plan.

The 8-point plan has been tagged the Presidential Plastics Action Plan.

The plan would help in keeping fossil fuels in the ground by ending fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and waters and banning fracking, are inextricably linked to #PlasticFreePresident.

They argue that these plans will lead to a safer, healthier, and more
equitable world for everyone.

The key eight demands are:

• Use the purchasing power of the federal government to eliminate single-use plastic items and replace them with reusable products

• Suspend and deny permits for new or expanded plastic production facilities, associated infrastructure projects, and exports.

• Make corporate polluters pay and reject false solutions

• Advance environmental justice in petrochemical corridors

• Update existing federal regulations to curtail pollution from plastics facilities by using best available science and technology

• Stop subsidizing plastics producers

• Join International efforts to address the global plastic pollution crisis through new and strengthened multilateral agreements

• Reduce and mitigate the impacts of discarded and lost fishing gear

They believe this plan would protect frontline communities from the
plastic industry’s toxic emissions while also preventing plastic pollution from contaminating our rivers and oceans.