Target: Richard Durbin, Majority Whip
Goal: Enact sweeping extensive producer responsibility laws to make companies pay for their own environmental damages.
Once it’s created, plastic never biodegrades. It never turns into organic matter or reduces to fertile soil. Over time, it breaks down into infinitely smaller pieces — but it always exists. In fact, through this process, it gets into our bodies, lodging in our organs, through food and drink including table salt, seafood, and beer.
Oftentimes plastic doesn’t even get recycled. And even when it does go through the energy-consuming process of changing it from one petroleum-based product into another, it’s often paid by the taxpayer, even though it’s corporations that have developed the plastic waste in the first place.
There’s something devious about that, especially considering that due to these corporations, plastic is quickly becoming the most abundant “fish” in the oceans and will outnumber actual fish in less than thirty years. A new study has shown that just twenty companies are responsible for over half of the world’s plastic production. It is time that these major companies pay for the harm that they have caused to the environment. They say that it is the consumer’s responsibility to be green while they package everything in plastics and send them to landfills. They caused the problem, and they should foot the bill to fix it.
Sign the petition to demand that the U.S government force plastic producers to pay for the damages that they have caused.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Mr. Durbin,
The world’s plastic production problem is leading the U.S down a dire path. Plastic continues to accumulate, and does not biodegrade; it just gets smaller and smaller and finds its way into our food and drink. Most plastics are not recycled, and even if they are it’s an energy-intensive process that is paid for by the American taxpayer.
Several states are working to pass “extensive producer responsibility” laws that will ensure that these companies which produce most of the world’s plastic have to foot the bill for fixing the damage that they have caused, with 20 firms responsible for over half of the world’s plastic production.
The oceans are drowning in plastic, and soon we will be too if nothing is done about it. Please, enact nationwide extensive producer responsibility laws and ensure that these companies fix the mess they made.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo By: pxhere.com
Corporate responsibility does not end at production. DEMAND ALL PLASTIC PRODUCERS be responsible for the proper disposal and recycling of their products.