California passes comprehensive bill to tackle plastic pollution

Several months ago, we launched a campaign to hold California manufacturers accountable for their pollution, a concept known as extended producer responsibility, or EPR. Tens of thousands of you raised your voices with us — and now, California lawmakers have passed the most sweeping EPR reform in the U.S. to date. The decision was initially supposed to be made with a California-wide vote later this year, but state legislators took matters into their own hands and gave near-unanimous support to plastics bill SB 54. The new bill achieves even more than we hoped the ballot voting initiative could, particularly around funding for the environmental justice community, and will: 1 Allocate $5 billion over the next 10 years to protect California’s lands and waters from plastics 2 Ban chemical recycling, a harmful process that burns plastic to use as fuel 3 Phase out single-use packaging We are so thankful for your support and the incredible leadership of the Nature Conservancy, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Oceana, the Ocean Conservancy, CalPIRG, and California Environmental Voters. And if you want to support another major plastics campaign, check out our petition to stop plastic pollution in New York. We’re almost at our goal of 20,000 signatures!