The Editorial Board: James is right: Plastic pollution should be addressed where it starts
Go to the source. Targeting plastic production is the only way to reduce plastic pollution and New York State Attorney General Letitia James clearly knows this. She also seems well aware that companies who say they support such reduction don’t always match the action to the words.
That’s why she just announced a lawsuit against PepsiCo Inc. for polluting the Buffalo River with its single-use plastic packaging. In 2022, James’ office conducted a survey of waste collected at 13 sites along the Buffalo River and its tributaries, and found that of nearly 2,000 pieces of plastic trash – more than 17% – were produced by PepsiCo, making it the most prevalent form of plastics pollution found in and along the waterway.
PepsiCo says it is focused on reduction and concerned about plastics pollution and displays such claims prominently on its corporate website (which also encourages consumers to join cleanup efforts). However, a nationwide study by Break Free From Plastic classified more than 2 million items of plastic waste from 2,373 sites between 2018 and 2022, and in each year determined that PepsiCo was either the No. 1 or No. 2 producer of the branded plastic trash collected.
Trash along the shorelines of waterways is bad enough, but plastic trash degrades into microplastics, tiny particles that have known toxic effects on marine wildlife and even make their way into human drinking water. The health impacts on humans are under study, but effects as serious as neurodegenerative diseases are among the possible consequences.
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Plastic pollution is overwhelming the planet. According to a 2023 United Nations report, the world produces 430 million tons of plastic a year, two-thirds of it short-lived plastics, which soon become waste. Less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled while at least 14 million tons end up in oceans yearly.
The massive failure of plastics recycling justifies the attorney general’s focus on plastics producers. Policies that reduce the amount of plastic created in the first place provide real solutions, but companies continue to find new ways to send more single-use plastics into the market. Bottom line: If recycling were working, manufacturers wouldn’t need to make so much more of it every year. Unlike glass, paper and metal, plastics comprise so many chemicals and additives that most of the different types can’t be recycled together, making it cheaper to create new plastic.
And it’s not only that recycling is ineffective. A recent study found that at a recycling facility considered state of the art, plastic particles were repeatedly shredded and washed so that more microplastics were flushed into city water systems or into the surrounding landscape, thus creating a new environmental problem.
While safe and effective recycling should always be pursued, in terms of single-use plastics, the option of making less must be even more strongly taken up. Lawsuits will doubtless be a recurring strategy as will stronger legislation.
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New York City has just prohibited single-use plastics in delivery and takeout orders unless specifically requested by the customer and Canada enacted a ban on the manufacture and sale of checkout bags, cutlery, food-service ware, stir sticks and straws in 2022. That ban is now in the courts, and bears watching.
A step backward was taken in Niagara County recently when the Lockport IDA approved tax breaks for Sri CV Plastics to build a manufacturing facility there. If constructed, it will produce single-use or disposable plastic food containers and packaging – exactly the products that are causing the most problems.
The good news is that many consumers have already moved to reduce the amount of single-use plastics in their lives by using refillable containers and getting along without as many of these disposable conveniences as they can.
But it will take direct action to reduce production, such as that led by Attorney General James, to combat the threat of plastic pollution both in Western New York and globally.
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