Draft US law seeks to make plastic industry responsible for waste
WASHINGTON: Carry your own cup to the coffee shop. Recycle that soda bottle. Say no to straws.
The growing global crisis of plastics waste is often framed as a problem stemming from careless consumers, but a new bill introduced in the US Congress Tuesday seeks to shift the responsibility back to industry.
The proposed "Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act," introduced by Democratic lawmakers, would be the most ambitious regulation the US plastics industry has ever seen.
It would require producers to collect and recycle their own waste, create a nationwide drink container refund scheme and phase out certain single-use plastic items.
Permitting of new plastic production would be paused for up to three years under the proposal.
But it has little chance of passage in the Senate where a Republican majority opposes curbs on an industry that generates about $400 billion in sales and maintains almost a million manufacturing jobs.
Still, observers say it signals the growing sway of environmental groups on mainstream politics.
"The plastics industry has convinced everybody if you put your (recycling) bin out on the corner, you've done everything you can do," Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, one of its co-sponsors, told AFP. "We needed the industry to change the whole model." - AFP