Kudos CA & Gov Newsom! "California passes first-in-nation plastics recycling law"
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/25/california-passes-first-in-nation-plastics-recycling-law/amp/
California passes first-in-nation plastics recycling law
In a move aimed at reducing huge amounts of plastic litter in the ocean and on land, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a first-in-the-nation law requiring plastic beverage containers to contain an increasing amount of recycled material.
Under it, companies that produce everything from sports drinks to soda to bottled water must use 15% recycled plastic in their bottles by 2022, 25% recycled plastic by 2025, and 50% recycled plastic by 2030.
Supporters of the new law say it will help increase demand for recycled plastic, curb litter in waterways and along roads, and reduce consumption of oil and gas, which are used to manufacture new plastics.
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This is the most ambitious, aggressive recycled plastics content law in the world,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a Sacramento-based environmental group.
SNIP
Half the plastic that has ever existed on Earth was made in the last 13 years. Only 9% of the plastic sold every year in the United States is recycled.
Up to 13 million metric tons of it ends up in the world’s oceans each year — the equivalent of a garbage truck-full being dumped into the sea every minute — where it kills fish, birds, sea turtles, whales and dolphins that eat it or become entangled by it.
Plastic lasts for hundreds of years. Making it consumes large amounts of petroleum products, which contributes to climate change. And at the current rate, one recent study found there will be more plastic by weight in the ocean in 2050 than fish, most of it broken into trillions of tiny pieces of toxic confetti.
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