How U.S. fights plastic pollution through ‘The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act’

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

Plastic is an ongoing contributor to climate change.

More than 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels and plastic production is expected to be more than double over the next three decades, according to the Center for International Environmental Law.

Many plastics are manufactured to be used once and then thrown away, spewing pollution, burdening our communities and ecosystems, and overwhelming systems designed to handle waste, a report from CNN stated.

In the U.S. the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act has been introduced by lawmakers to regulate plastic pollution.

Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, and Alan Lowenthal, the Democratic representative in the House for California’s 47th district, are the lead sponsors of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021.

They introduced the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, a comprehensive national strategy to reform the entire plastics life cycle so that less new plastic production can be done, recycling more, and ultimately, breaking the cycle of plastic pollution.

In America alone, more than 32 million tons of plastic get buried in landfills or burned in an incinerator each year, according to 2018 data from the EPA.

Plastics are poisoning our bodies, from the air we breathe, to the water we drink, to the food we grow and eat, the lawmakers said.

They added that on average, we each consume a credit-card-sized amount of microplastics every week, carrying toxic chemicals such as carcinogens and endocrine-disrupters believed to be changing humans’ reproductive biology.

The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act would transform America’s approach to plastics and put us on the transformative path we need to fully address this challenge.

It requires big corporations to take responsibility for the pollution that their plastic creates by shifting the burden of cleanup to producers rather than consumers, through the design and financing of waste and recycling programs.

It bans certain non-recyclable, single-use plastic products and creates a national beverage container program (better known as “bottle bill”) to provide refunds when people turn in empty bottles.

It includes a temporary pause on the construction of new plastic and petrochemical production facilities to ensure enhanced protections are in place to safeguard fence-line and front line communities from direct and cumulative impacts of pollution from these facilities.