Report: US should take leadership to reduce ocean plastics, starting with lower production

"No single solution" is sufficient to address the United States' contribution to ocean plastics, which is "outsized compared with other nations," a new report says.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommended the United States substantially reduce solid waste production, while calling for a national strategy by the end of 2022 to reduce U.S. contribution of plastic waste in the ocean.

Kara Lavender Law, a professor of oceanography at the SEA organization and co-author of the report, said there is a "mismatch between the sources of production of plastic products and the waste management systems charged with dealing with them."

In 2019, North America produced about 19 percent of global plastic, second to Asia, the report said. Plastic production is projected to increase by 200 percent by 2035 and 350 percent by 2050.

Most environmental litter in the U.S., about 70-80 percent, comes from single-use items including packaging, tobacco-related items and "unidentified fragments from larger items."

Reducing "the amount of plastic produced [can] help decrease waste stream management needs," Law said in a Dec. 1 webinar hosted by NAS.

"That could mean reducing the production of plastics that are not reusable or practically recyclable … items most likely to become waste and leak into the environment … with short, disposable use periods."

Law suggested federal product limits or targets for recycling or reuse of such products and materials.

The American Chemistry Council called the recommendation to restrict plastic production "misguided," adding it "would lead to supply chain disruptions, economic and inflationary pressure on already hurt consumers and worsen environmental outcomes, particularly related to climate change."

The report also suggests another solution, to make material changes to make single-use products recyclable, reusable or biodegradable. Many current product end-of-life strategies have barriers created at the production stage, the report said, like subsidized, and therefore artificially low-priced, virgin plastics.

"More than 90 percent of plastics are made from virgin fossil feedstocks, which utilizes roughly 6 percent of global oil consumption," it said.

"We need to be investing in research and development, starting with chemical engineers and material scientists," Law said. Also, "talking with product manufacturers and bringing in, not only environmental engineers, but those people on the ground managing solid waste."

Jenna Jambeck, a professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia and co-author of the report, suggested designing "more consistent" materials, rather than having "such a variety" of plastic forms, like rigid or soft plastics and films that "create a challenge" for recyclers.

"As we develop new materials, we need to match our infrastructure with what we're putting in the marketplace," she said. The current "mismatch," Jambeck added, is "how we ended up in the situation we have right now."

A "coherent collaboration," Law said, could ensure "what is being designed not only meets application functions but also can be recycled or recovered for maximum value at end of life."

ACC endorsed the concept of having a national strategy to reduce plastic waste.

"The primary finding from the report is that the U.S. needs a coherent and comprehensive policy strategy to reduce plastic waste in the environment," ACC's statement said. "America's plastic makers fully agree … particularly in improving access to waste collection and recycling infrastructure."

The report said the country's current recycling infrastructure is "grossly insufficient to manage the diversity, complexity and quantity of plastic waste in the United States."

U.S. solid waste management systems are "advanced overall," a Dec. 1 news release said. But plastic waste still "leaks" from those systems, "intentionally or unintentionally," at a rate of 1.13-2.24 million metric tons per year, based on 2016 estimates, the report said. Those estimates include domestic leakage and mismanagement of exported plastic scrap by the United States to other countries.

Efforts to recover plastics on beaches and at sea "tend to be expensive," Law said.

"The report recognizes the failure of plastics recycling, describes the latest chemical industry false solution of chemical recycling as 'unproven' and correctly recommends reducing plastic production," Judith Enck, a former U.S. EPA regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, said in an emailed statement.

It shows, Enck added, that "litter cleanups are not going to save the ocean."

"We cannot solve this issue if we allow fossil fuel companies to continue to churn out more and more single-use plastics each year," Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar said in a statement. "To address this crisis, the U.S. must prioritize an immediate reduction in the amount of plastic we produce and a shift toward refill and reuse.

"Recently, the Biden administration announced that it would support a global plastic treaty," Hocevar said. "This was a positive step in the right direction, but it must be followed with real urgency and the prioritization of impactful solutions.

"We are not going to turn the tide on plastics by listening to industry lobbyists that want to keep us locked into decades of increasing plastic production," he said.

The authors also recommend the country establish a nationally coordinated monitoring system to track plastic pollution, "in order to understand the scale and sources of the U.S. plastic waste problem, set reduction and management priorities, and measure progress in addressing it," the NAS release said.

Compared with mismanaged plastic waste from other countries, the United States was the "third- to 12th-largest contributor" of plastic waste into coastal environments, according to the report. But the country's true contribution is "hard to quantify," Law added.

"The known estimates, while likely conservative, convey the enormous scale of the problem," the report said.

The U.S. faces a difficult task in creating standardized, systematic data collection to understand the extent and patterns of plastic waste, the report said. But doing so would help to create interventions or mitigation actions like source reduction policies.

A comprehensive life cycle monitoring system, which currently does not exist, could help to find "hot spots," or regional differences in amounts and trends of coastal debris.

"We have a large waste management system that's very decentralized," said Margaret Spring, committee chair and chief conservation and science officer at Monterey Bay Aquarium.

"A lot of [leakage] occurs at the local and at the personal level, but the system is only as good as the system it's feeding into," she said.

There's a "complex relationship" between individuals' actions and the institutional issues with waste management, Jambeck said.

"This is why we need more information. … Community-based efforts have been a part of data collection on this topic for many years," Jambeck said.

"The finger-pointing stops now," Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director at Oceana, said in a statement. "We can no longer ignore the United States' role in the plastic pollution crisis, one of the biggest environmental threats facing our oceans and our planet today.

"Much of the plastic waste that threatens critical ecosystems, wildlife and human health around the globe originates here in the U.S., and our country's leaders have a responsibility to change that," Leavitt added.