By Shirin Sood, Shreyaa Patel, Arin Harkawat, Olivia Xu, Shriyaa Madineni, Syona Gupta, and Kiran Adams • Youth Committee
Going out with friends is a normal activity—picking up food, buying clothes, or grabbing a Starbucks drink. We as consumers can choose whether or not to buy from certain companies. We also can choose whether or not we request a plastic bag or a plastic straw when purchasing an item or a drink.
Yet, if we do accept these plastic items, what eventually happens to them? According to the World Economic Forum, the majority of plastic products ends up in landfills or the environment as litter, and another one-fifth is mismanaged during the recycling process.
Beyond correcting our own plastic habits, there have been legislative attempts to minimize plastic production by companies themselves. Advocates, including the Sierra Club, are urging the adoption of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws that would reduce the amount of packaging waste that includes plastic. New Jersey was the first state to hold battery producers responsible for tracking the batteries they sell for electric and hybrid vehicles and developing used battery management plans. The state has EPR bills for plastics under consideration currently (A1444 and S426).
Many of us naively believe that when our plastic waste is collected it is sent off to a recycling factory and efficiently and cleanly recycled. In reality, most plastic waste (at least 90%) is not recycled and instead is incinerated, landfilled, or shipped to underdeveloped countries where it pollutes other people’s land, water, and air.
To help address the serious lack of waste management regulation, government leaders should adopt Skip the Stuff laws—removing single-use plastic items from delivery orders—and consider expanding current EPR legislation to reduce plastics waste, too. New Jersey’s plastic bag ban, enacted in 2020, highlighted the value of legislation in bringing about wide-scale positive change. Each NJ resident now uses an average of 594 fewer plastic bags each year because of this ban.
NJ law also now mandates that plastic straws can only be provided upon request, and this type of rule needs support elsewhere across the nation. Plastic straws, a common form of litter in the ocean, are widely consumed in the United States. One widely quoted study estimates 500 million plastic straws are used each day.
Strong plastic policy would help to protect public health. Microplastics—plastics that have partly broken down—have been found throughout the human body including our lungs, blood, and heart.
Plastic items impact marine life. Approximately 700 species are known to have been affected by plastics. For marine animals, often death or sickness from plastics occurs from consumption or strangling. Sea turtles may mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, causing their digestive systems to be blocked. Birds and fish ingest plastic fragments or particles called microplastics, accumulating toxins that are devastating to their health. Whales may ingest plastic waste that fills up their stomachs and causes them to starve.
The Youth Committee believes that it is vital to transition to sustainable product use that protects the diverse ecosystems that are integral to life.