Governor Northam signs the ban on expanded polystyrene

Virginia is joining a handful of states and the long awaited ban on expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) food and beverage service containers has been signed into law! Large chain restaurants have until July 2023 to phase out EPS containers. Businesses with less than 20 locations have until 2025. This bill passed because of sustained grassroots effort led by Environment Virginia. The 2021 General Assembly wasn’t a 100% success, but we can definitely feel good knowing we’ll have one less plastic problem for our communities and waterways. Read the entire story here!

Virginia’s single use plastic bag fee

The momentum for localities in Virginia to implement the $0.05 fee for single use plastic bags is growing! Fairfax, Arlington, Loudon, and Prince William counties have begun preliminary discussions on what it will take to implement the single use plastic bag fee. The latest news is out of Prince William County where they are discussing using the revenue from the bag fee to start an office of environmental sustainability.

While this isn’t the good news that the first plastic bag domino has fallen, it is encouraging that localities around the state are looking to a sustainable future and using the single use bag fee as a catalyst. We anticipate that when one locality adopts the single use bag fee, others will quickly follow. Read the entire story about Prince William’s push for a single use plastic bag fee here!

Another ban on single use plastics!

In 2018, Queensland Australia banned single use plastic bags and saw a 70% reduction in plastic bag litter. That same year the Australian state started a bottle deposit program, this program has resulted in 3 billion beverage containers being returned. Queensland is building on their previous success with a ban on several common single use plastic items including: straws, cutlery, stirrers, and expanded polystyrene food and beverage containers. This action may be on the other side of the world, but it is always encouraging when any location takes aggressive action to prove that life without single use plastics is feasible. Read about the exciting plastic waste reduction initiatives happening in Australia here!

Environmental destruction from our addiction to single use plastics

One of the most disturbing stories to come out recently was about researchers finding 2,000 plastic bags in a camel’s stomach. This is an important reminder that plastic waste isn’t only a hazard to marine life. Plastic pollution impacts every ecosystem and every living organism on the planet. Nothing that is used for a few minutes should exist for hundreds of years only to cause death and destruction around the planet. You can read the tragic story of the camel here.