According to the Home Office, the sale of PET bottles and other disposable plastic products will be phased out in US national parks and public lands over the next decade.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Announced measures on Wednesday.. As the manager of 480 million acres of federal land, the agency is obliged to play a leading role in reducing plastic waste such as food and beverage containers, bottles, straws, cups, cookware and disposable plastic bags. She said there was.
“As managers of national public lands, including national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, and as agencies responsible for the protection and management of fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats, we are better for the planet. She is in her unique position to take action, “she said in a statement.
The Interior Ministry’s order reflects an intensifying global push to combat plastic waste pollution, and recycling alone, hampered by lack of collection and transportation, will push the United States ahead of the plastic pile. It wasn’t enough, so the challenge is to get rid of it. ..
The department acted accordingly Presidential directive From President Biden to reduce waste.
According to the Interior Ministry’s order, as a first step, the Interior Ministry’s offices and offices need to report how to phase out disposable plastic products by 2032. You also need to come up with ideas on how to change public behavior, such as adding fountains and bottle filling stations.
Oceana, a marine conservation group, estimated that the Interior Ministry’s move would curb “millions of pounds of unwanted disposable plastic in national parks and other public lands.”
“Our national park is, by definition, a protected area,” said Christie Levitt, director of plastic campaigns at Oceana. Said in a statement“It has been a very long failure to protect them from plastics,” he added.
Disposable PET bottles have been the target of policy makers for years. In 2011, the Obama administration advised the National Park Service to stop selling them. However, the park service under the Trump administration stopped the policy in 2017,Removed the healthiest drinksAllowed for sweetened drinks, and only about 20 of the 417 National Park Service sites adopted it.
The Interior Ministry’s order is in line with similar measures announced by governments and businesses to ultimately reduce the amount of plastic that enters landfills and waterways. Images of marine life, where tens of millions of tons of plastic pollute the ocean each year and are strangled by plastic rings, Death from ingestion of plastic waste..
Environmentalists, businesses and policy makers have tackled this issue from a variety of angles, from cafe counters to legislatures.
Paper straws are used instead of plastic straws Coffee shop And a British restaurant.The company has developed Soap sheet Included in a packet to replace the laundry detergent in a heavy plastic jug. Some global hotel chains are phasing out miniature toiletry bottles and replacing them with pump dispensers. Beverage companies are removing the plastic rings that bind 6 packs of soda and beer and replacing them with paperboard.
In the UK, stores charge for plastic bags and authorities ban the production of products containing plastic microbeads. In April, the government imposed a tax limit on the amount of non-recycled plastic packages that could be used in products as an incentive for companies to use recycled materials.
In March, representatives from 175 countries agreed to begin developing a global treaty limiting the explosive growth of plastic pollution.
The European Union’s ban on disposable plastics such as straws, plates, bags, cotton swabs and utensils has been identified as the most common plastic waste on the coastline and came into effect in 27 member countries last July.
Almost a year later, compliance is mottled, despite efforts towards a unified approach. Pyotr Balzac, waste policy officer for the European Environment Agency, a network of environmental groups, said the industries and manufacturers of the affected items are retreating.
“In countries where you can no longer buy these items, of course, you’ll see much less on the beach,” he said. “I don’t hold people accountable or responsible. It’s up to the authorities to regulate the producers and the people who put them on the market. It’s up to the enforcement authorities to control it.”