Single-Use Plastic Solutions at August Meeting

By Mia Taylor

Plastic bottles and containers have become ubiquitous in our society. The plastics industry and our consumerist economy assure us that everything is okay – after all, you just drop it into the recycling bin, right?

But what's really happening with what we put into our recycling bins? Many of us are aware that the global recycling business has been turned upside down in recent years, as China, which took in about half of the world's discarded recyclable materials for decades, instituted a ban on the import of most plastics in 2018.

Since then, plastic waste has been piling up like never before, and exporters of plastic recyclables are having a harder time finding countries willing to take our waste. U.S. municipalities that used to see some net profit from recycling are now paying to get rid of all their single-use plastic waste. To get more insight and answers we'll hear from Nicole Kurian at our August 18th meeting. A policy analyst with Californians Against Waste, Nicole will discuss the California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act that is expected to appear on ballots in November 2022, and we'll hear about other pending legislative items in Sacramento to attack single-use plastic waste.

We'll also get updates on the pollution in the Tijuana River Valley at our August meeting, our board's opposition to a problematic large solar farm proposed for the area near Jacumba Hot Springs, and how you can get involved with local efforts to defeat the gubernatorial recall and stop an extreme anti-environmentalist Republican takeover of the governor's office.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Müller and Greenpeace