Governors in Vermont and Maine signed bills on Monday that will ban plastic bags in their states next year, The Hill reported.
The Maine ban will go into effect next Earth Day, April 22, 2020. The Vermont ban, which extends beyond plastic bags and is the most comprehensive plastics ban so far, will go into effect in July 2020. The wait time is designed to give businesses time to adjust to the ban.
Youth activists ages 11-18 learn to fight plastic pollution at the inaugural Ocean Heroes Bootcamp. Ocean Heroes Bootcamp
By 2018 Ocean Heroes: Claire MacQueen (13 years old), Sabine Thomas (13) and Ava Inskeep (14)
We despise single-use plastics. We want to keep our oceans and our beaches clean. Early last year I (Claire) lived in India for several months and became curious about plastic waste, as it was much more visible in India than back home in the U.S. Seeing all the plastic waste while I was visiting helped me to understand that much of the trash produced by the U.S. actually ends up in developing countries, like India, which does not have a proper waste management system like we do at home, which causes a ton of trash to end up in waterways and the ocean.
Local governments in England and Wales have said that only about a third of the plastic food containers recycled by their constituents are actually able to be processed in recycling facilities, BBC News reported Saturday.
The introduction of bill No. 936 by New York City Councilman Rafael Espinal, Jr. marks a veritable tipping point in the spread of single-use plastic straw bans across the globe. From Taiwan to Portland, the city-wide takeover our team began with our Strawless in Seattle campaign has certainly taken off and created a global movement not only of citizens but also elected officials taking action to protect their waterways and their environments.
When we think of plastic pollution, we think of images of plastic bags on the beach, suffering marine life and the almost invisible smog of microplastics in our ocean. What often gets overlooked is the fact that conventional plastic is made from fossil fuels, and is a product of the oil and gas industry.
Straws suck—literally and figuratively. Americans throw away 500 million of these single-use plastics everyday day, clogging landfills, polluting oceans and causing harm to aquatic creatures.
And while reusable straws made of bamboo or metal already exist on the market, the Santa Fe-based team at FinalStraw have invented the
world's first collapsible, reusable straw you can conveniently attach to your keychain so you won't forget to bring your own when you're on the go.
We're celebrating a huge moment in the global movement for a plastic-free future: More than one million people around the world have called on big corporations to do their part to end single-use plastics.
Now we're taking the next big step. We're setting an ambitious new goal: A Million Acts of Blue.
The long awaited policy from the world's largest soft drink company featured a series of measures weaker than those previously announced for Europe and the UK.
We have a whole world of plastic that needs to be replaced with other biodegradable materials. We have come to rely on this indestructible modern material for every single facet of daily life.
The food you ate today was probably sold in plastic packaging, the vehicle you transport yourself in has plastic components, be that a car, bus, bike, train, plane, boat, kayak ... the computer you are reading this article on, even the charger and the wall socket protector … just look around.
