In the first half of 2019 alone, six states took strong action to rein in plastic pollution. Moving forward, we’ll be working to make California the next.
New York, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Oregon all banned single-use plastic bags, joining California, which banned them in 2016. Maine also became the first state to ban single-use polystyrene foam containers, and Maryland became the second a month later. Bags and polystyrene are seldom recycled. Instead, they often end up in our rivers and oceans, where they never fully degrade and pose a threat to wildlife for years to come.
"Our Wildlife Over Waste campaign is based on the principle that nothing we use for a few minutes should pollute our environment for centuries," said Steve Blackledge, senior director of our national network's Conservation program. "When we started this year, only California had taken action. Now it's a movement."
Our network's staff were instrumental in winning the California ban, and campaigned for the laws in Maine, Connecticut, Oregon and Maryland.
Photo: In the first half of 2019 alone, six states took strong action to rein in plastic pollution. Credit: idreamphoto/Shutterstock