Vanuatu Has One Of The World’s Strictest Plastic Bans
Ocean plastic has
become a scourge around the globe, floating in the remote seas off Hawaii and washing up in the ice fields of Antarctica. It wreaks havoc on marine life and is even polluting our food chain. The United Nations recently ”declared
war″ on marine litter after finding that a garbage truck of plastic is
dumped into the ocean every minute.
Vanuatu, which has a
total population of over 275,000, is responsible for less than .1 percent of marine plastic
debris, according to global waste statistics. Pacific island nations as a whole
are estimated to contribute less than 1 percent of the world’s mismanaged
plastic waste that feeds into the oceans. By unshackling itself
from the ease and convenience of plastics, Vanuatu’s leaders hope to set a
standard that the rest of the world - especially top plastic consumers like the
United States - can follow.
But American
policymakers have had a much tougher time banning far less than Vanuatu. New
York has been attempting a statewide ban on plastic bags for years, and Gov.
Andrew Cuomo (D) said last month he’d push for it again in 2019. Only
left-leaning California has been able to fully ban the products through
legislation. Hawaii also has a de facto ban, after every county in the state
passed its own law. A few American cities also have bans, or charge a nominal
fee to buy them. For most of the
country, however, the flimsy plastic totes are as easy to come by as ever. Americans use about 100 billion plastic bags every year, only a tiny
percentage of which get recycled... read more:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vanuatu-plastic-ban-law-ocean-pollution_n_5c6ee757e4b0f40774cd355d
