Air Date: Week of July 8, 2022

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Plastic fork with seaweed. Single-use plastic utensils are difficult to recycle and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. (Photo: Ingrid Taylar, Flickr, CC)

To help curb the plastic pollution crisis, the US Department of Interior will phase out single-use plastic products sold and distributed in national parks and other federal public lands it oversees. Christy Leavitt, Plastics Campaign Director at Oceana, joins Host Bobby Bascomb to talk about how the phase out could work and why it matters.

Transcript

CURWOOD: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley studios at the University of Massachusetts Boston, this is Living on Earth. I’m Steve Curwood,

BASCOMB: And I’m Bobby Bascomb. Roughly 40% of all plastic produced worldwide each year is thrown away after just one use.
And while things like plastic forks, straws and bags may be used for only a moment, they can stick around for up to a thousand years before they decompose.
Less than 6% of plastics in the US is recycled, meaning most plastic waste is incinerated, landfilled, or winds up in our oceans.
Seeking to curb such waste, Canada has announced a phaseout of the manufacture and import of common single-use plastic starting at the end of 2022 and culminating by the end of 2025.
Plastic is made from oil and gas, a major resource for Canada which is one of the world’s largest producers of oil.
Still, Prime Minister Trudeau says phasing out single-use plastic is a worthy aim, as the ban would eliminate close to 3 billion pounds of plastic waste over the next decade.

TRUDEAU: Plastic pollution is a global challenge. You’ve all heard the stories, and seen the photos. And to be honest, as a dad it’s tough trying to explain this to my kids. How do you explain dead whales washing up on beaches around the world, their stomachs jam-packed with plastic bags? Or albatross chicks photographed off the coast of Hawaii, their bodies filled to the brim with plastic they’ve mistaken for food? How do I tell them that against all odds, you’ll find plastic at the very deepest point of the Pacific Ocean, 36,000 feet down?

BASCOMB: The U.S. Interior Department has announced a goal to phase out single-use plastics sold and distributed in national parks and other public lands it oversees, but so far the Forest Service under the Agriculture Department has yet to follow suit.
The parks system alone had nearly 300 million visits last year and had to deal with some 70 million pounds of plastic waste.

For more, I’m joined now by Christy Leavitt, Plastics Campaign Director at Oceana. And by the way, we should disclose that Oceana is a supporter of Living on Earth through Sailors for the Sea. Welcome to Living on Earth, Christy!

LEAVITT: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

BASCOMB: So what exactly does this announcement entail? And how significant is it?

LEAVITT: This is a big announcement from the Department of Interior and the Biden administration. So on June 8th, on World Oceans Day, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland committed to phasing out single use plastic products in our national parks and other public lands overseen by the Department of Interior. So what she did was she issued a secretarial order that calls for the department to reduce the procurement, sale and distribution of single use plastic products and packaging on all Interior Department-managed lands and buildings by 2032.

BASCOMB: Now, the goal here is to phase out plastic by 2032, as you just mentioned, but that’s a full decade away. Why does it have to take so long? And what needs to happen between now and then?

LEAVITT: Yeah, well, we are hopeful that they will move quickly to phase out some of the worst, the most problematic, single-use plastics as quickly as possible. Our understanding is that it’s going to take them up to 10 years to deal with some of the specific concession contracts that they have. But we definitely know they’re interested in moving quickly, and we will be following up to make sure that they do move as quickly as possible.

BASCOMB: Well, what kind of impact does plastic waste currently have in our public lands and waters?

LEAVITT: Just to give you the scope of the problem, as we look at our oceans is that every year, 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean. And to put that in perspective, that’s roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into the ocean every minute. And it’s not just harming our oceans, but it’s also our climate and our health and our communities and our public lands. Basically, no place on earth is untouched by plastic. And we’re finding it in our national parks and other public lands. And it has a couple of impacts there. One impact is that nobody wants to look and see single use plastic water bottles or plastic straws or other plastic as they’re exploring the beautiful places like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. And then it’s also harmful for the ecosystems there. So not only are there the big pieces of plastic, so the plastic bag, or the plastic water bottle, but it also, plastic breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastic, that then can get into the soil, can get into the air. That’s what we’re finding in rain; we’re even finding it in human blood and in our lungs, too. So we’re finding it everywhere, including in our national parks.

Water bottles for sale in Death Valley National Park, California. Sales of single-use products such as these are slated to end by 2032 in all Department of Interior facilities including in national parks. (Photo: Courtesy of Oceana)

BASCOMB: And to what degree is that potentially a threat to wildlife? You know, the very reason that we’re going to these national parks?

LEAVITT: It is a big problem for wildlife. So not only can wildlife get entangled, or ingest plastic, but the same thing is happening with microplastics, where they might be eating it, they might be, you know, breathing it in, those sorts of things, too. So it’s a problem for wildlife. And when we talk about our national parks, there’s more than 400 different national park units around the country. Some of them are the really big parks, like Grand Teton National Park, and some of them are smaller areas. But 88 of the National Parks are ocean and coastal parks. So they’ve got a direct impact on what’s happening in our oceans as well as our coastal Great Lakes too. So the plastic, if plastic is going out there, it’s gonna end up in our oceans. And Oceana did a survey a few years ago, we pulled together a report that looked specifically at what was happening with animals in US waters. And we found nearly 1800 animals — these were marine mammals, so dolphins, whales, as well as sea turtles — had been harmed by either ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic in US waters since 2009.

BASCOMB: And of course, those are just the ones that we know about and documented, you can be sure the number’s much, much higher.

LEAVITT: That is definitely true. Those are only the ones that people were able to see and observe. But there’s a lot more animals that are being impacted by plastic.

Installing additional water fountains, such as this one at Grand Canyon National Park, can help reduce the need for single-use plastic bottles by making it easier for visitors to refill reusable bottles. (Photo: Michael Quinn / NPS, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

BASCOMB: Now, of course, plastic is made from fossil fuels, and the production of plastic and the plastic itself is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet. And as we know, climate change is one of the biggest threats to our national parks. To what extent, do you think that was maybe a factor in Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s decision here to phase out plastics on our public lands?

LEAVITT: Yeah, our national parks are definitely faced with extraordinary adaptation challenges. So it’s a critical problem. And it’s definitely something that the Department of Interior and the Biden administration overall are looking at solutions to the climate crisis. As you mentioned, plastics have a big impact on climate. Almost all plastic is created from fossil fuels. So throughout its entire existence, plastic is creating climate changing greenhouse gases, so it’s extracted from, whether it’s from oil and gas, that extraction creates greenhouse gases; then the production of plastic creates more; they’re transported; they then break down in landfills or they’re incinerated or burned. So throughout its whole life, that plastic is creating more and more greenhouse gases. And I don’t think most people think of that plastic bottle or that plastic bag as coming from fossil fuels, but it is. And in fact, if plastic was a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

BASCOMB: So how will phasing out single use plastic and the national parks and public lands actually work? What might a visitor see that might be different?

According to Christy Leavitt, every year around 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the oceans worldwide. That’s about two garbage trucks full of plastic every minute. (Photo: Courtesy of Oceana)

LEAVITT: I think some of the things that visitors will see at national parks will be more refillable water stations. So rather than buying a plastic water bottle, there’ll be stations at all of our national parks and other Department of Interior sites where you can go and refill your reusable water bottle. There’ll also be inexpensive water bottles for sale, so if you didn’t bring a water bottle, you’ll be able to purchase one right there. And you could use it over again and again. There’s already some of that happening at national parks and this will expand it even more. There are a lot of national parks, you can buy food, whether lunch or for dinner. Some of those are cafeteria style. Some of those are restaurant style. And they can move to reusable plates and dishes and cups and utensils. So they’ll need to create systems to be able to wash all those dishes. But it will be able to make sure that we’re not using single use plastic products in those places.

BASCOMB: Now, from what I understand many of the gift shops and food vendors in the national parks are actually concessionaires who contract with the National Park Service. So how might this affect them?

LEAVITT: Yes, that is definitely the case where a lot of the restaurants or gift shops are being run by concessionaires. And so they will need to make these changes, they’ll need to get rid of unnecessary single use plastic products, whether it’s in Yosemite or a National Seashore or another wildlife refuge.

BASCOMB: Christy, what kind of public support or, for that matter, pushback have you seen for this plan to phase out single use plastic in the parks?

Christy Leavitt is Oceana’s Plastics Campaign Director (Photo: Courtesy of Oceana)

LEAVITT: We know that people love their national parks, as we’ve been talking about a bit here. And we did a survey earlier this year. And we found that 82% of American voters would support a decision by the National Park Service to stop selling and distributing single use plastics at our national parks. So that’s a very high level of support, it’s bipartisan support. So definite interest in protecting our national parks from single use plastic.

BASCOMB: Christy Leavitt directs the plastics campaign at Oceana. Christy, thank you so much for your time today.

LEAVITT: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Links

E&E News | “National Parks to Phase Out Single-Use Plastics”

Read about Secretary Haaland’s order to phase out single-use plastics

About Canada’s single-use plastics ban

About Christy Leavitt

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Ottawa recently announced it will phase out some single-use plastics by 2025, but finding sustainable alternatives is trickier than you might think.

The ban, which targets six categories of plastics, is part of an effort by the Liberal government to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030. A study commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada showed that, in 2016, Canadians threw away three million tonnes of plastic waste, only nine per cent of which was ultimately recycled. The rest ended up in landfills, waste-to-energy facilities or the environment, where it can harm wildlife while taking hundreds of years to break down.

One of the single-use items on the banned list is the plastic checkout bag that many Canadians use for groceries and other kinds of shopping. Up to 15 billion plastic checkout bags are used every year in the country, according to government data.

They’re also one of the major sources of plastic litter found on shorelines. In 2021, almost 17,000 plastic bags were collected during community cleanups.

Even before the federal government’s move, some jurisdictions including P.E.I., Nova Scotia and a number of B.C. communities had already banned single-use plastic bags. Some major retailers such as Sobeys and Walmart have also stopped offering them.

The majority of Canadians are shifting away from single-use plastic bags, too. In a 2019 survey, 96 per cent of respondents said they used their own bags or containers when grocery shopping, though only 47 per cent of those said they always did so.

Examining the full life cycle 

The challenge for eco-conscious shoppers is that alternatives to single-use plastic bags also leave an environmental footprint.

A 2020 study by the UN Environment Program analyzed the findings of seven life cycle assessments (LCAs) on shopping bags published since 2010. An LCA assesses the environmental impacts of a product or services from, essentially, cradle to grave. This includes: 

• Raw material extraction.
• Production.
• Logistics and distribution.
• Use.
• End-of-life.

The study found the environmental ranking of bags varies depending on which criteria you consider. For example, one type of bag may score well in cutting down on litter but be a poor option when it comes to water and land use to make it.

The number of times a reusable bag is used is also crucial, the study found. On the lower end, a paper bag needs to be used four to eight times to have less impact on the climate than a single-use plastic bag. Meanwhile, a cotton bag needs to be used 50 to 150 times to be environmentally superior, according to the study.

Given the impacts from all life cycle stages, one of the best options for shoppers would to skip the bag altogether whenever possible, said Tony Walker, an associate professor of environmental studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

“Reducing consumption of anything and everything is key because everything requires resources and energy to produce,” said Walker, who advised the federal government on its Zero Plastic Waste Agenda and Oceans Plastics Charter.

If you do need a plastic bag alternative, here’s a closer look at the pros and cons of some common options.

Cotton bag

The cotton bag has greater environmental impacts than other types of bags during production due to the high amount of energy required to grow, irrigate and fertilize the cotton.

However, its durability lends itself to hundreds, even thousands, of uses, which makes it an environmentally friendly alternative, says Walker.

As well, cotton bags are made from a renewable resource and are degradable at end of life, though the 2020 UN study notes it matters how it is disposed. Waste incineration for cotton bags is climate neutral and therefore a better option than landfilling, where the study says degradation of the cotton releases methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

Paper bag

Paper bags have a few things going for them: they can decompose easily, they can be put in compost bins depending on your jurisdiction and they can be recycled as paper, says Walker.

However, like cotton, they demand quite a bit of energy to produce. They also require forestry products as raw materials and take more fuel to transport than other, lighter materials.

Another major drawback of paper is its low durability. 

“It kind of keeps us stuck in this single-use model,” said Sarah King, head of Greenpeace Canada’s oceans and plastics campaign. “I definitely encourage folks to think of what they already have and how they can incorporate that into their routine.”

Reusable plastic bag or bin

Some retailers offer reusable bags made of plastic materials, including low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyester. Others offer reusable plastic bins that shoppers can carry their items in.

Loblaws, which introduced a plastic-bag fee in 2007, has made both options available to customers. In response to a query from CBC News, the company said their black reusable President’s Choice bag is 99 per cent PET fibre made from post-consumer recycled plastic, while their green plastic bins are made from high-density polyethylene.

Walker said a reusable bag having recycled content “is a fantastic thing, better than it going to waste.”

But, “it is still made from a fossil fuel product, and so it would have to be disposed of very carefully at the end of life,” he said.

Biodegradable bag

These bags are often marketed as eco-friendly owing to an ability to break down into harmless material faster than conventional plastics.

But Walker says very few are actually 100 per cent “bio-based” — that is, derived from biological sources such as plants or algae — and instead may contain up to 25 per cent petroleum products, requiring specific conditions to break down at end of life in waste management or recycling facilities.

Indeed, a U.K. study published in 2019 tested the deterioration of biodegradable, oxo-biodegradable (containing additives for quicker breakdown), compostable and conventional plastic bags in four environments: the sea, soil, open air and controlled laboratory conditions. After three years, none of the bags showed any substantial deterioration across all of the environments.

Even when biodegradable bags degrade, unless they are 100 per cent bio-based, they risk leaking microplastic pollution into the environment, Walker said.

And there’s another big caveat even for bags that are 100 per cent bio-based.

“You might be obtaining plant-based material that otherwise would have been land given over to food production — so that could cause food shortages in parts of the world with food insecurity — or it could have been virgin forest that was cut down to make this material,” Walker said. 

“So it’s not the panacea.”

Consumers can drive change

Consumers have a lot of power to influence manufacturers and retailers to improve on some of these “first gen” alternatives, says one business expert.

“It’s up to us as consumers to nudge this along with our own behaviour,” said Barry Cross, an assistant professor and distinguished faculty fellow of operations strategy at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

Cross also cited the potential role of some of the larger fast food and retail organizations like Lululemon, who have “the size and the reach to be able to influence some of those packaging developers and some of the innovation associated with coming up with new alternatives.”

But is it enough? By the federal government’s own estimates, the six categories of banned products only made up about three per cent of the total amount of plastic waste Canada created in 2019.

That will make it difficult for Canada to reach to goal of zero plastic waste by 2030, says Greenpeace Canada’s King.

“Unless they add more items to the ban list, unless they actually set overall plastic production reduction targets and also invest in a transition to truly zero-waste systems that are centred on reuse, there’s no way they will ever meet their 2030 goal,” she said.

However, all three experts CBC News spoke to agreed the ban on plastic bags and the other five categories of single-use plastic is a positive thing, especially when it comes to changing the mindset around waste and pollution.

“This is low-hanging fruit — these items, many of us can easily do without,” said Walker. “If we can do without those, then it will help the government and consumers start to think more carefully about the plastics that we use, especially single-use plastics that we can do without.

“So yeah, whilst it might be on paper only a small step forward, a step forward by any means is better than no action at all.”

The United States creates more plastic trash than any other country and ranks third among coastal nations for contributing litter, illegally dumped trash, and other mismanaged waste to its beaches. Yet, even with such an abundance of disposable plastic—scientists measured 46 million tons in 2016—the U.S. manages to recycle just under 9 percent every year.

So, when California’s sweeping legislation on plastic waste was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom last week, the moment was heralded as a transformative shift that may redefine how the nation at large deals with the growing amount of plastic waste.

“The magnitude of this legislation really can’t be overstated,” says Anja Brandon, a plastics policy analyst at the Ocean Conservancy, which participated in the lengthy negotiations to craft the bill. “This is the first legislation anywhere in the world that requires a simple reduction in the amount of plastic.”

The new law aims to accomplish several big things at once. Most significantly, it requires a 25 percent reduction of plastics in single-use products in California by 2032—a first in regulatory efforts in the U.S. to restrain the growth in plastic manufacturing, which globally is forecast to triple by mid-century to 32 million tons a year. The reduction can be achieved by shrinking the size of packaging and shifting to refillable containers or packaging made from other materials, such as recyclable paper or aluminum. By the Ocean Conservancy’s calculations, those packaging reductions would eliminate nearly 23 million tons of single-use plastics over the next decade. Californians throw away about 4.5 million tons of plastics yearly, according to CalRecycle, the state’s waste management agency.

The new law also requires 30 percent of plastic to be recycled by 2028, increasing to 65 percent by 2032—a giant leap. It further requires the industry to create a $5 billion fund over the next decade to help low-income communities impacted by the effects of plastic pollution.

Finally, it transfers the cost of recycling to the industry from municipalities and their taxpayers. The practice, known as extended producer responsibility, (EPR) has been in use in the European Union (EU) since the 1990s, and is credited with boosting higher recycling rates in western Europe, which hover around 40 percent.

Canada began such an EPR program last year. Other countries, including India, are in the process of writing EPR regulations. In the U.S., EPR has been introduced in Congress, but so far has failed to gain approval. California’s shift to EPR follows Oregon, Maine, and Colorado, which have passed slightly different versions.

“It’s been a long time for the dam to break in the U.S.,” says Ted Siegler, a waste expert and partner at DSM Environmental Services in Vermont. He has worked with nations across the globe to develop waste management systems, and has long supported requiring industry to finance the cost of processing the trash their products become. “It will take several years before we will see if any of these EPR laws here are going to work.”

California’s long reach

The new law is expected to prompt change in the plastics industry far beyond California’s borders. As the most populous state and the world’s fifth largest economy, California influences markets in ways that other states can’t. Auto manufacturers, for example, agreed to follow California’s fuel emissions standards, which are stricter than federal standards. In plastics, experts predict that product packaging lines, for example, will be adapted to California’s standards no matter where the products are sold.

“A national or global company in all likelihood will make those changes globally or nationally, and not just for the state of California—or Maine,” Siegler says. But he also sounded a cautionary note against counting on the new law to live up to its effusive praise as landmark: “My experience with waste reduction measures is they have always failed to meet reduction targets written into the legislation. It would be great if they were able to (in this case). Proof will be in the implementation.”

Stricter regulations elsewhere

The EU remains the world leader in regulating plastic products, packaging, and waste. It has banned 10 types of single-use plastic products, including food and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene or foam, straws and beverage stirrers, and certain biodegradable plastics. The EU also is in the process of revising regulations in order to reduce all packaging. And, to support the use of recycled plastic, it is considering setting mandatory targets for recycled content required in packaging, vehicles, and construction products.

Other nations also have taken a national approach. India’s national ban on single-use plastics, announced with fanfare last fall, took effect July 1. More than three dozen countries, most of them in Africa, have banned plastic shopping bags, the world’s most-used consumer product.

In the U.S., efforts to curb plastic waste have been scattershot. Eight states have banned plastic shopping bags. Five states have banned expanded food containers made of expanded polystyrene, or foam. The plastics industry has succeeded in persuading lawmakers in more than a dozen states to pass laws preventing such product bans.

Federal legislation, which includes a provision calling for a fee on production of virgin plastic used to make single-use plastics, is tied up in Congress. The provision is aimed at leveling the playing field for plastic production: In the U.S., making plastic from virgin plastic is far cheaper than making it from recycled plastic, and those economics contribute to the growing accumulation of plastic trash around the world. Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced last month a plan to phase out single-use plastics in national parks and other public lands by 2032.

California already leads the nation in regulating plastics, having banned bags statewide and expanded polystyrene in 128 cities. Last year it outlawed the use of the common circular recycling symbol, found on the bottom of packaging, in cases where the packaging is not actually recyclable.

Still, efforts to pass more comprehensive legislation eluded lawmakers until this year. Success this time came largely because the plastics industry joined other proponents to craft a compromise that kept a more stringent plastics initiative, known as the “anti-plastics” bill, off the November ballot.

There’s no pleasing everyone 

Even so, not everyone was happy with the outcome. The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group that lent support in an effort to derail the ballot measure, nevertheless gave the new law praise, however faint. In a statement, Joshua Baca, the group’s vice president of plastics, said the law is “not the optimal legislation to drive California towards a circular economy,” but pledged to work with California lawmakers to refine several provisions.

Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator and founder of the activist group, Beyond Plastics, faulted lawmakers for failing to ban expanded polystyrene, and for not closing loopholes that she says may allow plastics producers to avoid meeting their targets. “When the dust settles, there will be some remorse,” she says. “Better than nothing is not a good strategy.”

Enck also criticized the EPR program for allowing the industry to organize the EPR procedures and collect fees, though the final authority to oversee the program lies with CalRecycle, the state agency. “Environmental policy makers would not put the fossil fuel industry in charge of reducing greenhouse gases, so why are we putting the packaging industry in charge of reducing packaging?” she asks.

Recology, the San Francisco-based recycling company that provided seed money to get the citizen’s initiative on the ballot, praised the new law for its EPR provisions and efforts to reduce plastic packaging, but said in a statement even more legislation and additional funding will be required.

“As a recycling company, Recology is doing everything we can, but manufacturers and their packaging companies are producing too many plastics in total and too many different kinds of plastics,” the company said.

Recology, which provides recycling and composting service to nearly 150 communities in the three West Coast states, does advise consumers to do their part: “Each time we avoid plastic when shopping, we send direct messages to brands and their packaging companies. If we don’t buy it, they won’t make it.”

In the end, what sets the new California plastics law apart is the requirement that reduces plastic production, says George Leonard, the Ocean Conservancy’s chief scientist.

“It goes to the heart of the question—the growth of plastic production as a driver in environmental change. Is it everything? No. But it’s going to bend the curve in a more practical way than anything that came before.”

The landmark legislation also restricts single-use plastics. Because California’s economy is so big, experts say, the law could have far-reaching effects.