The Environmental Protection Agency has released its “National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution,” outlining opportunities for action to protect communities from the impacts of plastic production and waste.
The document also details how government agencies, businesses, nonprofits and communities can take additional action to prevent plastic pollution, according to a news release.
The strategy also aligns with the U.S. commitment to negotiating an ambitious international agreement with the aim of protecting public health and the environment by reducing plastic pollution around the world, the EPA said. The strategy is the third pillar of EPA’s “Building a Circular Economy for All” effort, following national strategies on recycling and reducing food loss and waste, according to the release.
“EPA’s new strategy to prevent plastic pollution will have a profound impact on public health and our environment, especially in overburdened communities hit hardest,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “From reducing cancer-causing pollution from plastic manufacturing facilities, to increasing industry’s accountability to take back recycled plastic packaging, to capturing waste before it ends up in our bodies and the environment, this strategy lays out the path forward for EPA and our partners to tackle this persistent challenge.”
Example actions from the strategy include:
- Reducing the production and consumption of single-use plastic products and increasing the U.S. capacity to reuse and refill products, including in the federal government.
- Measuring the environmental and human health impacts throughout the life cycle of single-use products.
- Enhancing public policies and incentives to decrease plastic pollution, including working with others to create a national extended producer responsibility framework.
These actions are in addition to steps that are already underway to reduce plastic waste, the release said:
- EPA’s Trash Free Waters Program will strengthen its emphasis on preventing trash from entering the environment, removing trash in and around waterways, and disseminating research findings.
- EPA set enforceable wastewater standards for industry and has developed national water quality criteria recommendations for pollutants in surface waters. In 2024, EPA finalized new requirements for facilities to develop and submit response plans for worst-case discharges of hazardous substances under the Clean Water Act, including many chemicals used in plastic manufacturing.
- EPA finalized rules in 2024 to reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants including ethylene oxide and chloroprene, which will result in significant reductions in harmful air pollution in local communities near plastic production facilities, including communities with environmental justice concerns.
- EPA’s Risk Management Program rule sets requirements to protect vulnerable communities from chemical accidents, especially those living near facilities in industry sectors with high accident rates, including certain plastic manufacturing facilities. In the spring of 2024, EPA finalized the Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention rule.
- EPA’s Environmental Justice Grants and Technical Assistance Program offers a variety of funding opportunities for projects that focus on plastic pollution reduction.
- In addition, the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided EPA with funding to support implementing this strategy through the Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling and Recycling Education and Outreach grant programs. This includes funding for improvements to reuse and recycling infrastructure, for education and outreach, and for waste reduction plans.
- EPA launched a new platform containing the initial actions EPA is taking to implement our series of strategies on “Building a Circular Economy for All.”
EPA is issuing this national strategy as the international community gathers in Busan, South Korea, for the final meeting of the International Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. The strategy will help inform the international community of the wide range of actions available and already taken in the U.S., the release said.
In the bipartisan Save Our Seas 2.0 Act of 2020, Congress charged EPA with developing a strategy to reduce plastic waste and other post-consumer materials in waterways and oceans. EPA published the draft strategy in April 2023 and received nearly 92,000 comments during the public comment period.
The agency’s updated strategy incorporates that feedback and affirms EPA’s commitment to eliminating the release of plastic waste into the environment by 2040, according to the EPA. The opportunities for action in this strategy are designed to combat climate change through greenhouse gas emission reductions associated with the life cycle of plastic products and to reduce public health impacts to communities overburdened by pollution, the release said.
EPA, with input from industry and trade organizations, national and community-based non-profit organizations, government agencies, tribes and private individuals, identified objectives and actions to address environmental and human health concerns by eliminating U.S. release of plastic into the environment and reducing exposure to plastic pollution.
The “National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution” follows the “National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics” and builds on EPA’s “National Recycling Strategy” by identifying actions needed to reduce and recover plastic and other materials, as well as prevent plastic pollution from harming human health and the environment. These actions support a circular economy approach to the management of plastic products — an approach that is regenerative by design, ensuring resources retain value for as long as possible, the release said. It aligns with the White House’s 2024 report, “Mobilizing Federal Action on Plastic Pollution: Progress, Principles and Priorities,” which presents a plan for federal action.
