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C- This article was posted January 28, 2020
R- It agrees with my claim statement
A- Stephanie Vermillion
A- N/A
P- This article is informing us

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In early January 2020, China joined the growing movement of more than 120 countries pledging to ban single-use plastics. The country of 1.4 billion citizens is the No. 1 producer of plastic waste in the world. It topped 60 million tons (54.4 million metric tons) in 2010 based on a September 2018 report titled " Plastic Pollution."

But China announced it plans to outlaw the production and sale of non-degradable bags by the end of 2020 in major cities (and everywhere by 2022), as well as single-use straws by late 2020. Markets selling produce will have until 2025 to follow suit.

The push to ban plastic took center stage in 2018 with massive promotions like the award-winning # StopSucking campaign, which featured stars like NFL quarterback Tom Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen and Hollywood actor Adrian Grenier pledging to give up single-use plastic straws. Now countries and companies are saying no to plastics by the dozens, and consumers are following along with them.

As the plastics-ban movement hits major milestones - such as China's latest announcement - we decided to define the bottles, bags and straws that are causing this global stir.

What Is Single-use Plastic?

True to its name, a single-use plastic is disposable plastic that's designed to be used once then tossed or recycled. This includes everything from plastic water drink bottles and produce bags to disposable plastic razors and plastic ribbon - really any plastic item you use then immediately discard. While these items can be recyclable, Megean Weldon of the blog and waste-prevention shop Zero Waste Nerd says that's hardly the norm.

"In reality, very few plastic items can be processed into new materials and products," she says in an email. "Unlike glass and aluminum, plastic isn't processed into the same item it was when it was collected by a recycling center. The quality of plastic is downgraded, so eventually, and inevitably, that plastic will still end up in a landfill."

Take a plastic water bottle. Most bottles say they can be recycled - and based solely on their easily recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) composition, they could be. But nearly seven out of 10 bottles end up in landfills or tossed as litter. This problem increased when China decided to stop accepting and recycling plastic in 2018. For municipalities, that meant recycling became significantly pricier, according to The Atlantic, so many municipalities are now simply opting for the budget-friendly landfill over recycling.

Pair this landfill-first approach with the world's ever-growing plastic consumption - humans produce almost 20,000 plastic bottles per second, according to The Guardian and America's waste grew by 4.5 percent from 2010 to 2015 - it's no wonder the world is overflowing with plastic waste.

Plastic Could Outlive Us All

Think banning all of this plastic is overkill? There are some very solid reasons why it makes sense. First, plastic in landfills just doesn't go away. According to Weldon, a plastic bag takes 10 to 20 years to degrade, while a plastic bottle takes almost 500 years. And, even when it's "gone," its remnants remain.

"Plastic never breaks down or goes away; it only breaks into smaller and smaller pieces until they're so microscopic they can be found in our air and our drinking water," Kathryn Kellogg, author and founder of the waste-reduction website Going Zero Waste, says via email.

Some grocery stores have switched to biodegradable plastic shopping bags as a way to meet consumers in the middle, but research shows this is hardly a savvy solution. One study from researchers at the University of Plymouth in England analyzed 80 single-use plastic grocery store bags made of biodegradable plastic over the course of three years. Their goal? Determine just how "biodegradable" these bags really were. Their findings were published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Soil and seawater didn't lead to bag degradation. Instead, three of the four types of biodegradable bags were still sturdy enough to hold up to 5 pounds (2.2 kilograms) of groceries (as were the non-biodegradable bags). Those exposed to sun did break down - but that's not necessarily positive either. The small particles from degradation can quickly spread through the environment - think air, ocean or the belly of hungry animals who mistake plastic fragments for food.

Can't We Just Reuse Single-use Plastic?

Another reason many countries are prohibiting single-use plastics is because they shouldn't be reused, despite our best intentions. As many municipalities forego recycling, it's tempting to take matters into your own hands by reusing (and therefore "recycling") plastic bottles and containers. Sure, this may work for bags, but experts say to take caution when it comes to plastic bottles or food containers. One study in Environmental Health Perspectives showed that all plastics used in food containers and plastic bottles could release harmful chemicals if used repeatedly. (This includes those said to be free of bisphenol A [BPA] - a controversial chemical that's been linked to hormonal disruptions.)

While researchers are still analyzing the safety of repeated plastic reuse, experts recommend glass or metal to avoid potentially harmful chemicals. And according to Weldon, it's time we adopt a reuse mindset - be it cotton produce bags, stainless steel straws or a full-on zero-waste.

"The worst thing about any single-use item is that we devalue something to the point that we intend to throw it away," she says. "The convenience culture has normalized this destructive behavior and as result, we produce millions of tons of it every single year. If we change our mindset on what we consume, we will be more aware of the single-use plastic we use and how we can avoid it."
This story is a part of Covering Climate Now's week of coverage focused on Climate Solutions, to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Covering Climate Now is a global journalism collaboration committed to strengthening coverage of the climate story.

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What Are Single-use Plastics and Should They Be Banned?

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In early January 2020, China joined the growing movement of more than 120 countries pledging to ban single-use plastics. The country of 1.4 billion citizens is the No. 1 producer of plastic waste in the world. It topped 60 million tons (54.4 million metric tons) in 2010 based on a September 2018 report titled " Plastic Pollution."

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C- This article was posted January 9, 2020
R- It agrees with my claim statement
A- Courtney Cindwall
A- N/A
P-This article is informing us

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What Are Single-Use Plastics?

Put simply, single-use plastics are goods that are made primarily from fossil fuel-based chemicals (petrochemicals) and are meant to be disposed of right after use-often, in mere minutes. Single-use plastics are most commonly used for packaging and serviceware, such as bottles, wrappers, straws, and bags.

Though plastic-a chain of synthetic polymers, essentially-was invented in the mid-19th century, it wasn't until the 1970s that its popularity skyrocketed. Manufacturers began replacing traditionally paper or glass staples with lighter or more durable and affordable plastic alternatives; plastic jugs replaced milk jars, for instance. Since the 1950s, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics have been produced, and half of that in the past 15 years alone.

There are many uses for plastic that are not only reasonable but important, such as surgical gloves, or straws for people with disabilities. But these cases make up a small fraction of single-use plastic. According to a 2017 study, more than half of non-fiber plastic, which excludes synthetic fabrics like polyester and nylon, comes from plastic packaging alone, much of which is for single-use items.

Why Is Single-Use Plastic Bad?

Single-use plastics are a glaring example of the problems with throwaway culture. Instead of investing in quality goods that will last, we often prioritize convenience over durability and consideration of long-term impacts. Our reliance on these plastics means we are accumulating waste at a staggering rate. We produce 300 million tons of plastic each year worldwide, half of which is for single-use items. That's nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population.

Reducing plastic use is the most effective means of avoiding this waste (and the impacts linked to plastic production and use). Carrying reusable bags and bottles is one great way to avoid single-use plastics in our day-to-day lives; more on preventing plastic waste can be found below.

Recycling more plastic, more frequently, reduces its footprint. Polyethylene terephthalate, one of the most commonly recycled plastics and the material that makes up most water and soda bottles, can be turned into everything from polyester fabric to automotive parts. But a whopping 91 percent of all plastic isn't recycled at all. Instead it ends up in landfills or in the environment. Single-use plastics in particular-especially small items like straws, bags, and cutlery-are traditionally hard to recycle because they fall into the crevices of recycling machinery and therefore are often not accepted by recycling centers.

Left alone, plastics don't really break down; they just break up. Over time, sun and heat slowly turn plastics into smaller and smaller pieces until they eventually become what are known as microplastics. These microscopic plastic fragments, no more than 5 millimeters long, are hard to detect-and are just about everywhere. Some microplastics are even small by design, like the microbeads used in facial scrubs or the microfibers in polyester clothing. They end up in the water, eaten by wildlife, and inside our bodies. They've even made their way up to the secluded Pyrenees mountain range and down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. For wildlife, microplastics can be particularly dangerous; when eaten they can easily accumulate inside an animal's body and cause health issues, like punctured organs or fatal intestinal blockages.

Single-Use Plastics and Pollution

Although single-use plastic pollution accumulates most visibly on our streets, in fact our water suffers even more. Litter can be the first stage in a waste stream that enters waterways as plastics tossed on the street are washed away by rain or travel via storm drains into rivers and streams. Our waterway plastic pollution is particularly concentrated: Just ten rivers carry 93 percent of the world's total amount of plastic that enters the oceans via rivers each year.

In 2015 researchers from the University of Georgia estimated that between 4.8 million and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic per year make their way into the oceans via people living within 30 miles of a coast. The majority of this pollution-dominated by single-use plastic waste-comes from countries lacking infrastructure to properly manage waste, particularly in Asia. India, for example, generates 25,940 tons of plastic waste every day but collects only 60 percent of it. (It's also important to remember that waste management is just one part of the global materials cycle. For instance, a lot of the plastic produced in Asian countries is for products that serve U.S. demand-and the United States often sends plastic waste back to these countries for recycling.)

Marine animals bear the burden of this influx of garbage into their habitats. Beached whales have been found with stomachs full of plastic trash. And recent studies found plastic in the guts of 90 percent of the seabirds tested and 100 percent of the turtles. Alarmingly, scientists estimate that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight in 2050. Not only is plastic estimated to kill millions of marine animals and seabirds each year, but it's also contaminating seafood that humans have relied on for millennia, particularly with microplastics in animals' guts.

Our addiction to plastic also has negative impacts on the climate. A recent report showed that plastic production contributes to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions at every point in its life cycle. The process of drilling for plastic's source materials, oil and gas, leads to methane leaking and flaring and is often combined with clearing forests and wetlands that otherwise would have sequestered carbon. Refineries where crude oil is turned into plastic make up one of the most greenhouse gas-intensive industries in the manufacturing sector. And "cracker plants"-which break, or "crack," ethane molecules, a component of natural gas, into the chemical building blocks of plastic products-are energy intensive and highly polluting. In 2015 a mere 24 of these ethane cracker facilities in the United States had the combined carbon output of 3.8 million passenger vehicles. And the recent fracking boom, resulting in a surplus of oil, is fueling a subsequent rise in cracker plants, too. That's bad news for our carbon reduction goals: if plastic production continues unabated, its greenhouse gas emissions could reach 1.34 gigatons per year by 2030 -equal to adding nearly 300 new coal-fired power plants-even as the need to curb global climate change becomes more urgent.

Plastic pollution-whether in our oceans, piling up on our coastlines, or contributing to our climate crisis-impacts vulnerable communities first. Even if plastic doesn't end up in the ocean, recycled plastic is often exported from high-income countries to developing countries to process. But the sheer amount of plastic waste inundates communities until they are drowning under thousands of tons of plastic trash. This is the case particularly in Southeast Asia, which has begun to import much of the plastic that used to go to China for recycling. Not only does the waste destroy the land itself, but when plastic is incinerated (as is the case for unrecyclable plastic at some illegal facilities) its toxic fumes quickly become a health hazard for residents, leading to everything from skin rashes to cancer. Such is the case with many environmental crises: the worst effects are pushed onto overburdened communities with the fewest resources to fight back.

Should We Ban Single-Use Plastics?

Plastic is putting a strain on waste management systems, our oceans, and vulnerable communities the world over. A wave of single-use plastic bans is sweeping the country and the globe-most often on plastic bags, straws, stirrers, and takeout clamshells. (Some places are going so far as to ban single-use plastics entirely; most notably, India intends to go this route by 2022.) Among the U.S. cities to outlaw plastic straws are Malibu, Berkeley, Seattle, and Miami Beach. Plastic bag bans-ideally accompanied by a fee on paper bags-are also catching on. New York State and Hawaii just passed theirs, set to go into effect in 2020, and California's bag ban, which was passed in 2014, has been shown to have reduced plastic bag usage by 85 percent (with some customers opting to pay a 10 cent fee for thicker plastic bags) and has reduced coastal pollution.

What do the bans accomplish? They prevent millions of tons of plastic from entering the waste stream each year. And when it comes to waste that lasts forever, every ton counts. In New York, 23 billion plastic bags are used by residents each year. Not only does banning single-use plastic reduce pollution, but it also reduces demand for plastic production that's contributing to global climate change. But beyond these impacts, the bans have cultural effects. Companies are forced to innovate, rethinking their designs and sourcing sustainable materials. And they help shift consumer mind-sets, as people begin to recognize that exorbitant and avoidable waste is not sustainable.

Large producers of single-use plastics can make a big environmental impact. As part of the Break Free From Plastic movement, Greenpeace volunteers conducted an audit of plastic pollution along coastlines, sifting through tens of thousands of individual pieces across 42 countries to identify the pollution's sources. They discovered that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé products were found most often. Coca-Cola has said that it alone produces three million tons of plastic packaging each year, equivalent to a terrifying 200,000 plastic bottles per minute. Policies like bottle bill laws-which generally require retailers to add a fee on individual bottles, which can then be partially redeemed by customers when they recycle-are a way to increase corporate responsibility for waste while providing a monetary incentive to recycle. In Taiwan, which was once overflowing with so much trash that it spurred public protest and the nickname "Garbage Island," companies now either manage their own waste or subsidize government-run infrastructure. Accompanied by high social accountability and musical garbage trucks, that strategy has proved wildly effective: the island now reports recycling rates above 50 percent.

Some companies are taking initiative on their own. McDonald's swapped its plastic straws for paper at its United Kingdom and Ireland restaurants. Disney is eliminating single-use plastic straws and stirrers at all its theme parks, resorts and properties. And Starbucks, which uses an estimated one billion plastic straws per year, is phasing them out in favor of paper ones. These actions are a response to calls for change and shifting consumer habits.

Avoiding Single-Use Plastics

Individual choices -and the collective shifts they bring about-add up quickly. Making just one simple swap, like purchasing a reusable water bottle, can spare the environment hundreds of plastic bottles each year. Here are a few more tips for ridding your life (and your community) of single-use plastics for good.

Always pack a reusable bag when shopping. (And yes-reusable totes are better for the environment than plastics, recent media claims aside.)

Cook more often, to reduce your use of plastic-heavy takeout containers.

Buy in bulk. Avoid individually packaged goods, like snack packs.

Though buying online sometimes has a lower carbon footprint than shopping in a store (skip the express delivery option, if you can), online shipments are still chock-full of plastic. Your best bet to reduce your footprint and plastic waste? Walk, bike, or take public transit to buy in-person.

Avoid plastic wrap altogether by storing leftovers in reusable containers. Try reusable and compostable beeswax wrap for an easy and decorative option.

Buy a metal or bamboo reusable straw. Pack it alongside reusable cutlery (like wood, bamboo, or metal chopsticks) for sustainable eating on the go.

Talk to the owners of the restaurants you frequent. Ask if they have nonplastic alternatives to plastic straws, stirrers, or bags.

Speak out in support of local plastic bans, whether by calling your local government representative, submitting an op-ed to your city's newspaper, or simply starting conversations with neighbors.

Let companies that make your favorite products know that you care about the packaging. Tweet, call, or send letters to these companies to ask them to switch to more durable, recyclable, compostable, renewable, and/or recycled-content packaging with less fossil fuel-derived plastic.

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Here's everything you need to know about the most ubiquitous (and avoidable) kind of plastic waste: the kind made to be tossed in mere minutes.

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C- This article was posted September 12, 2020
R- It agrees with my claim statement
A- Zoe Schlanger
A- N/A
P- This article is informing us

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In 2018, on New Year's Day, the world of trash changed forever.

Before that fateful morning, the US was sending 4,000 shipping containers full of its recyclable waste to China every day-almost three-quarters of all the country's recyclables. And for years, China accepted it on the premise that it could process the recycling and make a profit selling it as post-consumer materials. But the truth is that the US was bad at recycling, and kept getting worse: The bales being sent to China were badly contaminated. This was partly due to so-called "single-stream" recycling, which many cities adopted about a decade earlier.

Single-stream meant that citizens were required to put all recyclables into one bin. It was supposed to improve recycling rates. Instead, it created waste streams so contaminated that China could scarcely do anything with the shipments. Most single-use plastic objects can't be recycled, but due to a lack of information, the average American didn't know that. Plus, mixing glass with paper meant shards of glass mixed with paper-rendering both unusable. In short, American recycling was broken. The deal was no longer worth it and China decided it had had enough. It imposed a policy known as "national sword," which raised the standard of how "pure" a bale of plastic must be to the point where the US and other countries, for the most part, could no longer comply. On Jan. 1, 2018, the law went into effect, and China effectively closed its doors to the world's trash.

This hit California very hard. The state was sending fully two-thirds of its recyclable materials to China. "This shift in China's policy has resulted in the loss of markets for low-value plastic packaging that was previously considered recyclable. That material is now being landfilled or burned," reads California Assembly Bill 1080, which was introduced into California's legislature in February. With no market for recycled plastic, even recyclers are forced to landfill or incinerate what they collect. Bottle deposit centers, where Californians could redeem a soda bottle in exchange for five cents, are closing throughout the state.

Now that bill, along with two others, are poised to dramatically reimagine California's relationship to plastic, mostly by trying to prevent industries from producing new, virgin plastic in the first place. Right now, the US produces 335 million tons of new plastic each year. If passed, the bills would ban the production or sale of any non-recyclable single-use packaging containers in the state by 2030. They would also require California to either recycle 75% of all single-use plastic packaging and products sold or distributed in California, or otherwise find a way for them not to end up in landfills. That would mean almost doubling the state's current rate. Right now, just 44% of waste is diverted from landfills, according to the Los Angeles Times.

One of the three bills, AB 792, would also require all drink containers to be made of at least 75% recycled plastic by 2035.

The bills are close to landing on the governor's desk for final passage-but they have only until Friday, Sept. 13, when California's legislative year ends, to be passed or die on the vine. (Update, Sept. 14: The legislative year ended without the bills coming to a vote.)

Meanwhile, consumer companies and the plastic industry have mounted "11th hour campaigns" to kill or weaken the measures.

A South Carolina company called Novolex is behind one social media campaign to spread concerns about the legislation, according to the Los Angeles Times. The campaign is called "Californians for the Environment and Recycling," and claims that the bills would make products that "families rely on for food, health, and well-being" unavailable.

Novolex was also behind a push to oppose California's plastic bag ban, which passed in 2016.

The ban in California could have impacts on the sector in other states, because any company importing goods to California would have to comply with its plastic standards. Much like California's emissions standards tend to cause changes in the automotive industry nationally, such a bill has the potential to shift the plastic landscape more broadly.

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California could become the first state to ban single-use plastics

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In 2018, on New Year's Day, the world of trash changed forever. Before that fateful morning, the US was sending 4,000 shipping containers full of its recyclable waste to China every day-almost three-quarters of all the country's recyclables. And for years, China accepted it on the premise that it could process the recycling and make a profit selling it as post-consumer materials.

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C- This article was posted June 18, 2016
R- It does not agree with my claim statement
A- Ben Adler
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P- This article is teaching us

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Like cigarettes, plastic bags have recently gone from a tolerated nuisance to a widely despised and discouraged vice.

Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers. Two weeks ago, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a measure that would ban plastic bags from being dispensed by many retail businesses and require a charge of 10 cents or more for a recycled paper or reusable bag. The Massachusetts proposal may not become law this year, but it's the latest sign that the plastic bag industry is losing this war. Already in Massachusetts, 32 towns and cities have passed bag bans or fees. So have at least 88 localities in California, including the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, plus cities and towns in more than a dozen other states and more than a dozen other countries.

The adverse impacts of plastic bags are undeniable: When they're not piling up in landfills, they're blocking storm drains, littering streets, getting stuck in trees, and contaminating oceans, where fish, seabirds, and other marine animals eat them or get tangled up in them. As longtime plastic bag adversary Ian Frazier recently reported in The New Yorker, "In 2014, plastic grocery bags were the seventh most common item collected during the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup, behind smaller debris such as cigarette butts, plastic straws, and bottle caps." The New York City Sanitation Department collects more than 1,700 tons of single-use carry-out bags every week, and has to spend $12.5 million a year to dispose of them.

Bag bans cut this litter off at the source: In San Jose, California, a plastic bag ban led to an 89 percent reduction in the number of plastic bags winding up in the city's storm drains. Fees have a smaller, but still significant, effect. Washington, DC's government estimates that its 5-cent bag tax has led to a 60 percent reduction in the number of these bags being used, although that figure is contested by other sources.

Is plastic really worse than paper?

But advocates of these laws and journalists who cover the issue often neglect to ask what will replace plastic bags and what the environmental impact of that replacement will be. People still need bags to bring home their groceries. And the most common substitute, paper bags, may be just as bad or worse, depending on the environmental problem you're most concerned about.

That's leading to a split in the anti-bag movement. Some bills, like in Massachusetts, try to reduce the use of paper bags as well as plastic, but still favor paper. Others, like in New York City, treat all single-use bags equally. Even then, the question remains as to whether single-use bags are necessarily always worse than reusable ones.

Studies of bags' environmental impacts over their life cycle have reached widely varying conclusions. Some are funded by plastic industry groups, like the ironically named American Progressive Bag Alliance. Even studies conducted with the purest of intentions depend on any number of assumptions. How many plastic bags are replaced by one cotton tote bag? If a plastic bag is reused in the home as the garbage bag in a bathroom waste bin, does that reduce its footprint by eliminating the need for another small plastic garbage bag?

If your chief concern is climate change, things get even muddier. One of the most comprehensive research papers on the environmental impact of bags, published in 2007 by an Australian state government agency, found that paper bags have a higher carbon footprint than plastic. That's primarily because more energy is required to produce and transport paper bags.

"People look at [paper] and say it's degradable, therefore it's much better for the environment, but it's not in terms of climate change impact," says David Tyler, a professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon who has examined the research on the environmental impact of bag use. The reasons for paper's higher carbon footprint are complex, but can mostly be understood as stemming from the fact that paper bags are much thicker than plastic bags. "Very broadly, carbon footprints are proportional to mass of an object," says Tyler. For example, because paper bags take up so much more space, more trucks are needed to ship paper bags to a store than to ship plastic bags.

Looking beyond climate change

Still, many environmentalists argue that plastic is worse than paper. Climate change, they say, isn't the only form of environmental degradation to worry about. "Paper does have its own environmental consequences in terms of how much energy it takes to generate," acknowledges Emily Norton, director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. "The big difference is that paper does biodegrade eventually. Plastic is a toxin that stays in the environment, marine animals ingest it, and it enters their bodies and then ours."

Some social justice activists who work in low-income urban neighborhoods or communities of color also argue that plastic bags are a particular scourge. "A lot of the waste ends up in our communities," says Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, an environmental and social justice-oriented community organization in Brooklyn. "Plastic bags not only destroy the physical infrastructure," she says, referring to the way they clog up storm drains and other systems, "they contribute to emissions." And she points out that marine plastic pollution is a threat to low-income people who fish for their dinner: "So many frontline communities depend on food coming from the ocean." That's why her group supported New York City's bag fee even though it's more of a burden on lower-income citizens. A single mom, or someone working two jobs, is more likely to have to do her shopping in a rush on the way home from work than to go out specifically with a tote bag in hand. But for UPROSE, that concern is outweighed by the negative impacts of plastic bags on disadvantaged communities.

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Banning Plastic Bags Is Great for the World, Right? Not So Fast

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Like cigarettes, plastic bags have recently gone from a tolerated nuisance to a widely despised and discouraged vice. Last month, the New York City Council passed a 5-cent-per-bag fee on single-use bags handed out by most retailers.

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C- This article was posted January 20, 2020
R- It agrees with my claim statement
A- Trevor Nace
A- N/A
P- This article is informing us

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A boy carries bottles of water during a severe drought in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan province ... [+]
AFP via Getty Images

China, one of the world's largest consumer of plastics, just announced its plan to ban single-use plastics across the country.

The proposal, announced Sunday aims to reduce plastic waste that has become ubiquitous in Chinese cities, promote recycling and green packaging and curb their overflowing garbage dumps.

The policy will ban the production and sale of disposable plastic tableware and cotton swabs by the end of 2020. Production of household products containing microbeads will be banned by the end of 2020 and sales of such products will be banned two years after that.

Single-use and non-degradable plastic bags will be banned in major Chinese cities by the end of 2020 and across the country by 2022. In addition, single-use straws will be banned by the end of 2020.

A child carries a chick bought from a vendor outside a primary school on March 3, 2009 in Changchun ... [+]
Getty Images

By 2025 the proposal, which was introduced by both the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, would ban all single-use plastics across the country.

The phased approach will allow time for China to ramp up manufacturing of biodegradable and alternate products to replace single-use plastics.

The ban comes on the heels of China announcing that it's mega-dump, the largest in the country is full 25 years ahead of schedule. The Jiangcungou landfill in Shaanxi Province is the size of 100 football fields and was built to receive 2,500 tonnes of waste per day. Instead, the landfill received 10,000 tonnes of waste per day.

While China is one of the largest waste producer s in the world, the United States produces more waste per person than China.

Shopping cart filled with plastic bags.
Toronto Star via Getty Images

Canada is the largest producer of waste in the world. It is estimated that each Canadian produces 36.1 metric tons (about 80,000 pounds) of waste per person per year. In total, Canada produces 1.33 billion metric tons of waste per year.

To date, there are three states in the United States that have banned single-use plastic bags. California was the first state to ban its use, followed by Hawaii then New York. The ban of single-use plastic bags in New York will go into effect in March of 2020.

While those are the current states that have banned single-use plastic bags, numerous cities and counties across the country have banned their use.

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China, one of the world's largest consumer of plastics, just announced its plan to ban single-use plastics across the country. The proposal, announced Sunday aims to reduce plastic waste that has become ubiquitous in Chinese cities, promote recycling and green packaging and curb their overflowing garbage dumps.

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C- This article was posted May 17, 2019
R- It agrees with my claim statement
A- wsj video
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P- This video is informing us

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5/17/2019 9:00AM

Plastic represents one of the biggest waste challenges for cities in the future. The Wall Street Journal examines the new technologies that could revolutionize our conception of waste. Photo illustration: Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal

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Plastic: The Scourge of Cities Becomes a Resource

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5/17/2019 9:00AM Plastic represents one of the biggest waste challenges for cities in the future. The Wall Street Journal examines the new technologies that could revolutionize our conception of waste. Photo illustration: Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal

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C- This article was posted September 30, 2019
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A- Bloomberg
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