Hi there, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. I’m your guest host, Harry Artin. And today, we have a fantastic guest. She’s a PhD, her name is Anja Brandon, she’s the US plastics Policy Analyst with Ocean Conservancy, and Anja Welcome to Unite and Heal America. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Yeah, this is terrific. Our host Matt Matern had had was very interested in this recent legislation. It’s the SB 54. correctly, scanning for Senate Bill 54. Tell us a little bit about Senate Bill 54. Because that’s, that’s new in the news in California. So tell us a little bit about that, as you know, United heal America, we addressed the environment.

Yeah, as the 34, which was introduced and recently passed, just about two weeks ago here in California, is the single strongest plastics legislation we’ve ever seen in the United States. And that’s precisely because it requires less single use plastics to be sold into the state of California over the next 10 years.

So it actually requires 25% Less single use plastic packaging and foodware in this state over the next 10 years. And I worked with another scientist at Ocean Conservancy, and we estimated that this will result in a reduction of 23 million tons of plastic in the state over the next 10 years, which is equivalent to roughly 26 times the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge in California.

Wow. Wow. So so you’re that’s incredible and terrific for the turtles and all the fish in the ocean and all the rest of the life. So you’re a plastics policy analyst. What what is that exactly involve at at Ocean Conservancy?

Yeah, great question. That means I work at the state and federal level on policies that will reduce plastic pollution. That means working with legislators, their staff, other environmental advocates, other stakeholders as well to write and pass policies that will result in less plastic pollution, waste and production for the betterment of our ocean.

I’m actually a scientist by training. But I wanted to kind of switch gears after I finished my PhD to work on policy to have a more sweeping and broad impact on more immediately on our environment.

Terrific. That’s, that’s so fantastic. So where did your passion start with with combating such a nefarious thing as plastics in the ocean? Where did your passion start? Yeah,

I got really interested in plastic pollution. Back in, you know, fifth or sixth grade, I actually got my start working at the Seattle Aquarium in high school as a youth ocean advocate. And in Seattle, the Puget Sound is right there. It’s right in our backyard. And it’s this little microcosm kind of like a little fishbowl for what else is happening in the ocean. And so there’s all sorts of, you know, amazing wildlife and animals and habitat, and a ton of pollution.

And so that’s where I first learned about plastic pollution in our environment, and got absolutely hooked by this problem, because it’s so entirely man made and man generated. And it seemed like such an interesting solution or an interesting problem to try to work on solutions for.

So Ocean Conservancy, how long has Ocean Conservancy been around? And what is its main mission?

Ocean Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization, whose mission is to protect the ocean from today’s greatest global challenges. So together, we create evidence based solutions for a healthy ocean, and the wildlife and communities that depend on it. And we envision a healthier ocean protected by a more just world.

So we’re working on any number of the great challenges facing our ocean, from climate change to plastic pollution, to drilling and offshore oil, all of the, you know, crises that are facing our ocean to make sure that the communities that depend on it, and as well as ecosystems and wildlife can really live in thrive.

Fantastic. I mean, you know, I think about plastics, and I think, what is, you know, I know is very harmful, but what is that? What are the main? What are the main harms of plastics in our in our society, especially the oceans?

Yeah, you know, I think it’s easy to or one thing that we all think about is our ocean plastic pollution crisis, and you’re absolutely at a crisis point. And it’s impacting all of us. Plastics are everywhere in our ocean for have the deepest trench, the Mariana Trench to the most remote island shores at this point.

Plastics we know are now even in our food in our own bodies as these microplastics that break down from our larger plastic pollution, nearly 11 million metric tons of plastic flow into the ocean each year from land based sources alone, harming our marine ecosystem, and the communities and wildlife that depend on it. But plastics are not just a pollution problem. 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. So plastic production directly contributes to our climate crisis.

Wow, I did not know the way you said you said plastics in the body.

Yeah, there’s been some increasing research and evidence that have found microplastics. So these microscopic, sometimes, you know, invisible to the naked eye, pieces of plastic that have been found in the human body, whether it’s a mother’s placenta to, you know, our own blood, blood cells, which are blood, I should say, which was kind of the most recent research that’s come out.

We’ve seen it in microplastics in our drinking water, and some of our protein sources like seafood, and even, you know, land based protein sources, to things like sea salt. So we know it’s really all over our food supply chain and getting into our bodies. And we don’t yet know exactly what that impact is.

Wow. So we’re be almost becoming literally plastic.

We are certainly consuming more and more plastic without knowing exactly what it’s doing to our bodies. So yeah, pretty scary.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Wow. I mean, what is I mean, is there going off topic here? Is there like an alternative? Have you? Have you done any research at Ocean Conservancy as to, like, an alternative approach to our packaging? As opposed to just plastic or maybe a less destructive form of plastic?

Yeah, I think sometimes instead of focusing, or I think, instead of focusing on, you know, what is the best one to one replacement? Kind of taking a step back? And first asking, do we need that plastic product? Do we need that piece of packaging? Could we eliminate it altogether? Maybe we don’t need our produce triple wrapped in something?

Or could we replace it with a reusable product, you know, products and packaging that we can use time and time again, that we know are the most efficient and effective ways to really get to that circular economy that results in less pollution, and also less climate impacts.

So you know, I think one thing that we’re working thinking a lot about Ocean Conservancy is how to not just, you know, not designing products to be better for when they do pollute, but not polluting in the first place. So how can we use less single use products and packaging, and invest in our reuse economy instead?

And of course, there’s going to be certain plastic products or packaging that we do need. And so then the trick is going to be asking ourselves, what is the most sustainable, recyclable option or designed to make sure that any plastic we do need can stay in our economy and be reused over and over again? Sure, sure.

Do you know anything about that? What’s that huge landmass of plastic in the ocean? Floating? That’s horrible. This horrible sounding plastic mass of garbage plastic in the ocean? What do you know about that? And is there anything we can do about then what harm Do you think it’s causing?

Yeah, it’s a little bit of a misnomer. So there’s these they’re called gyres in the ocean. And there are these natural ocean currents, you know, spread or circulate around our world naturally. And they tend to collect things as they do that. And so there’s the center areas in our oceanic gyres that accumulate and collect a lot of plastic and other pollution.

You know, it’s a bit of a misnomer that it’s a big island out there. It’s really more of a plasticky kind of soup, made up of plastic pollution, you know, whether it’s big items all the way down to tons and tons of those microscopic and micro plastics I was talking about. There’s one, you know, one of the largest, most well studied ones is right here off our coast.

In California, the Pacific gyre, it’s kind of between California and Hawaii. But we know there’s gyres and other places around the world that all kind of you know, swirl around and tend to collect these pollution Yeah, incredibly harmful but also a great place for tons of research has been done looking at all of the plastic pollution in our ocean.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Well, this is quite quite fascinating. I mean, so today we’re discussing again with with on your brand and PhD with Ocean Conservancy about the harms of plastic in our society and especially the oceans. I mean it is oceans that it’s the most harmful correct.

We have Ocean Conservancy think of it as one ocean so we’re all connected by one big trough. Anyway, fantastic. And we’re going to take a station identification break, we are Unite and Heal America with Matt matter. And I’m your guest host here yarnton And we’ll be back with Anya in a minute.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

All right, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. And I’m your guest host, Harry Artin and I have a fantastic guest coming back here PhD Anja Brandon, the US plastics Policy Analyst with Ocean Conservancy, thank you again, on your for coming on the show.

So let me ask you this. You know, we’re talking about plastics and the destruction, especially in the ocean, and we’re all connected to the ocean. I mean, it’s like the biggest what it’s the biggest mass of on this planet is our oceans, I mean, oceans, pretty much the Earth equals an ocean. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. It covers, you know, 72% of Earth at least 72%?

I mean, that’s, we don’t think about that, do we? We don’t think about that, that, that. That just like we don’t realize that our body is what 80% of water 90% Water, or 70%. Ocean, over 70% of plastics. And plastics are a big, big threat. Again, off topic here. But again, I’m just curious if we go at our rate of plastic destruction? I mean, what have you analyzed what harms they could do to the seas?

Yeah, we know that, you know, at the current almost like exponential rate of plastic use or production. It’s really unsustainable. We have no, there’s some estimates out there that plastic production is expected to double or triple by 2050.

Which is not only incredibly, incredibly harmful for our oceans, in terms of pollution, but also a real challenge for addressing climate change. You know, we already mentioned that plastics are made primarily of fossil fuels. And all of that fossil fuel extraction and production to get…

Hold on, hold on, just sorry to cut you off. But they’re made of fossil fuels, or they’re made from the process or fossil fuels are may or used in the process of making plastic are both a little bit of both.

So plastics are essentially a solid form of oil. They’re what we call a hydrocarbon. So they’re just carbon and hydrogen atoms stuck together, just like any other fossil fuel. So you actually get out the basic building blocks for plastics far more from our fossil fuel extraction. And it’s a really energy intensive process to then take those and make it into a plastic.
So not only are they made from fossil fuels, it requires a lot of fossil fuel energy to then turn that back into first turn that fossil fuel into a plastic.

Wow. So plastic really is hydrocarbons. Yes. Yeah. And carbon is that bad word. In our in our in our environmental fight right now. So we’ve also we’ve done some research to your, for your PhD. I know, I noticed you said you had done some research, interestingly enough on insects and bacteria that can eat and actually break down plastics.

Why did you switch to focusing on policy? And, or, you know, what, what do you think about innovative technologies like that?

Yeah, I really loved science and it’s so cool and cool. He, you know, especially after so many bad news stories in the environment, which I’m sure you all are all too familiar with reporting on, it’s exciting to have something that seems like a good news story finally. And so I was studying these insects, mealworms, and the bacteria in their gut that can actually break down plastics all the way.

So you know, not just turn them into microplastics, but really get rid of plastics. And as exciting as that research was, I realized, like so many other researchers, that that wasn’t going to be a silver bullet kind of solution for our problem. And that really, there wasn’t going to be any one solution for our plastic pollution crisis. And it’s because the magnitude of the challenge is just too big. We are making too many plastics to have any one technology, you know, really, really fixed if we think about it.

So we kind of need and all of the above approach, there really needs to start with making less plastic in the first place. Over half of the plastics ever made in the world have been made in the last 13 years old? Well, it’s a really just an exponential growth in plastics, nearly 40% of that goes to single use packaging. So plastics that are designed to be used once and then immediately discarded.

So I realized we simply couldn’t innovate and technology our way out of this crisis. So I turned to policy because I saw that we need these systemic changes to cut down on the amount of plastics that we use in the first place, and hold plastic producers responsible for all this waste that they’re generating.

Yeah, yeah. What about? What about the idea?

Why don’t know whether it’s a wacky idea, what if the government were to step in and say, we, we are going to have maybe for subsidized cost or free of charge, like a water filtration system in everybody’s house, so that way, and then that way, people will not buy bottled water anymore, and bottled water will literally be banned?

Yeah, you know, the inability of our government to provide clean drinking water everywhere is really an devastating failure. And we’ve seen time and time again, in this country, drinking water crises. As I said, I’m a scientist by training, and I studied environmental engineering, which is all about how we provide clean, safe drinking water to many places.

And it’s really devastating that, you know, as a country, we can’t do that. And we can’t simply get rid of plastic water bottles, because we know there’s so many communities that require those water, that water source as a clean drinking water supply.

So yes, I would love for our government to step up and ensure that we have clean drinking water access to every citizen, and everyone really in the States, or, and, or a, you know, maybe like some sort of like, you know, like a, like a system by which the government sends since the majority of people water filtration system of some sort that would motivate people to to to not buy their, their water in plastic bottles.

And then maybe what if there was like some sort of extra tax or something for to buying water in bottles, plastic bottles, like a plastic tax or something like a plastic penalty? I don’t know.

Yeah, there’s been there’s some policy out there that kind of tries to get at that idea in general, SB 54. The policy that brought us here today talking kind of takes that the onus of responsibility and shifts it from us, the consumer, on to producers in the first place, as the, you know, plastic producers who are making all of those harmful products, and it holds producers financially responsible for the end of life of their product.

So in doing that, it kind of internalizes some of those costs that right now we pay for US taxpayers or we pay for his ratepayers when we’re paying for you know, our recycling or trash to get picked up. And in doing that, it actually, you know, makes it gives the producers a reason financially to actually design and make better products in the first place.

That can be recycled can be reused, or actually make fewer products, you know, fewer plastic products, whether it’s you know, just using less plastic in their existing packaging or what have you, by switching the responsibility on to these big producers, it kind of puts their financial skin in the game to help be part of the solution.

So what is what is the number one form that plastic takes? That is the number one offender Do you think? Is it is it bottles? Is it what do you what is the form of plastic? That is the number one offender?

Yeah, you know, I think any and all of these single use plastic packaging and foodware are really our top offenders.

Just to elucidate again for our audience, single use define single use even though

Yeah, that’s a great obvious but no, it just means a plastic packaging or, you know, takeout container or anything like that that’s designed to be used once and then immediately discard it. And so that’s most of the plastics that we interact with on a day to day basis, whether it’s your a water bottle, a takeout container at a store, or a fast food restaurant, to a food wrapper that we buy out of store, and targeting these single use plastic packaging really has to be central to any strategy tackling plastic pollution, because it’s these items that are most likely to end up polluting our beaches and our ocean.

We at Ocean Conservancy have data to show that more than half of the most common items littering our beaches and our waterways over the past 35 years. Are these single use plastic packaging and food were items.

Interesting. And then last question very quickly as we wrap up here. What about the the has it has it? Has it been effective? This limiting of plastic bags in our grocery stores?

Yeah, man. That’s a bigger question that we should come back into.

Okay, we’ll probably come back. We’ll leave that for the next segment. Again, this is united heal America with Matt Matern. I’m your guest host here he art and we have Anja Brandon, US plastic policy of panelists with Ocean Conservancy and Unite and Heal America. We’ll be right back.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.

This is Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. I’m your guest host, Harry Artin. And we have a fantastic guests coming back here, guest AnjaBrandon, PhD, and US plastic Policy Analyst plastics Policy Analyst with Ocean Conservancy on Yeah, again, we were just talking about plastic bags.

And I know I’m from Michigan, and I recently relocated to California about a year ago and I know it’s pretty draconian, well, maybe that’s not the right term, but it’s pretty, you know, strict when it comes to the use of plastic bags and grocery stores.

Do you think that that’s making a big impact positively on our calm desire to combat plastics in our environment?

Absolutely. You know, I think tackling any of these, you know, really harmful single use plastics, through Phase outs or bans is really critical because we know there’s certain items, like bags that are not recyclable, are easily replaced with reusable items, and then ended up disproportionately as pollution on our beaches and do a ton of harm when they’re out there in the environment. And so that’s why California has stepped up and banned plastic bags.

That has led to a ton of people investing in reusable tote bags, and bringing those to the store. I know if you’re anything like me, my car trunk is absolutely full of you know, fun, colorful bags that I now bring into the store instead of these plastic bags. That being said, we also learned a lot of lessons on how to do that in California and how to design legislation and standards that will not just lead to more plastic. So one issue we saw sometimes with this plastic bag ban is thicker bags.

Um, thicker plastic bags being used instead of, you know, eliminating plastic bags in the first place. And that’s one of the motivations that led to SB 54. I’m just saying, you know, leading with the intent, we want less plastics.

So we’re going to mandate and require less single use plastics in the state of California. So the thicker plastic bags were designed to just be reusable, and be more durable. So they’re designed to be more reusable and durable.

And you know, some people, myself included, think it’s just skirting the rules a little bit, you know, it’s not really the intention, the intention was for those reusable tote bags that we all have piling up in the trunk of our car, rather than any of these single use flags.

Because we know that some of those plastic bags while they were designed to be more reusable don’t end up being more reusable. In the end, especially if people still think of them as single use and kind of irritated by those thick plastic bags.

We don’t have those in Michigan, where I’m from, and I don’t know, I never understood what what to make of it, it seems like overkill. But the other question I had was, uh, do you think there’s gonna be a time in which we pick up fast food or we pick up to go items, and we have to bring our own like, to go type?

You know, where, like, I hate to say plastic, but reuse or reusable plastic?

Yeah. You know, I think a good solution, or I think that’s a pretty exciting idea. And I know there’s certain places, especially in California that are looking and trying alternatives like that. Berkeley, California is a great example, where they’ve, you know, the whole city is worked with, I believe it’s called Go wear, which is reusable.

You know, Tupperware type, yeah, type items. So you can go to a store and you know, get a box lunch, in something like a go where you can go to a takeout place or a restaurant and get those votes there. And then return it wherever you go next, and they take it back and clean it and reuse it. And because it’s a you know, one big unified system, it actually works pretty effectively. So lots of use. Yeah.

And I think you should get, like 50 cents off every time you use your go. Where are some? Ah, yeah, I don’t know. cans and bottles?

Absolutely. Yeah, I don’t know if they have that in place, or if it’s just, you know, cheaper for everyone, because you’re not paying for all that disposable goods.

They bake in an incentive for people to use it. So. And then also, our I don’t know if I asked you this already, if you answered this question already. But are there great. Are there great alternatives to plastic?

Yeah, we talked a little bit about reusable and how we shouldn’t really be focusing on that in the first place usable, but is there another substance besides plastic that can be you know, that scientists can, you know, like yourself, you know, could possibly develop that wouldn’t be as harmful for the environment?

Yeah, there’s a lot of research being done on you know, compostable, and other plastics like that right now, in California, there’s no plastics that are compostable under the definition in law, so there’s really not any great alternative right now in California.

You know, there’s other, you know, types of packaging that have been out there, aluminum, paper, glass, all of those are pretty readily recycled, or recyclable. And so I think we’ll see an increase in those types of packaging as well.

Interesting. So more, more, more paper, but is it using paper destructive to our environment?

Yeah, absolutely. If we’re not, we’re using recycled paper that has to come from somewhere. And that tends to come from trees. So it’s really important. And one thing that SB 54 This law that was just passed in California does is it requires all packaging materials to help pave into that financial end of life of their product and pay into improving and investing in California’s recycling system.

Because we will see more products moving to paper or you know, cardboard or other, you know, fiber based products, and it’s so important that we invest in our paper recycling, so that we are not just clear cutting trees to use paper. We actually have that recycled content there that we can use.

So I mean, besides, you know, the twin endeavors of recycling plastic and also just really cutting down plastic production. Is there anything else that we can do probably critically to keep plastics out of the ocean?

That’s a great question. Um, you know, I think in terms of our big picture, macro plastics, the things that we think of, you know, single use water bottles, bags, food were items like that, using less plastic in the first place, and making sure that all of the plastics we do use are recyclable, and then get recycled is really critically important.

There’s this whole other new problem that we’re learning about and these micro plastics that are, you know, small bits and pieces of plastic that break up just also micro fibers, small bits and pieces of plastics actually shed from all of our plastic clothes. And that’s a whole new issue.

All that stuff’s having you there get plastic clothes. Yeah, a lot of plastic in our clothes don’t we do. So anything that you have that is polyester is another word for plastic.

Really, polyester is plastic.

Yep. Most of our, a lot of our clothes are polyester. Anything that is nylon, trying to think of other other words here. There’s, you know, a lot of those fibers are all synthetic plastic based. And so they when they’re in our washing machine, or even our clothes dryers on, they shed these little bits and pieces of plastic that then flow out into our waterways or into our airways from the dryer. And so I think there’s going to be a lot of future work to think about how our government can help protect us from that.

So whether it is filters on our washing machines, and our clothes dryers to better filters in our municipal wastewater treatment systems. Our car tires are also made out of plastic. And as they rub down along the roads, they shed little bits and pieces of plastic that we know can be really, really harmful in the environment as well. So plastics are really all around us. And I think each type of plastic pollution is going to require, you know, a different policy solution to think about how we make sure it’s not hurting our environment and ultimately coming back to hurt us in our communities.

I mean, plastic is pervasive and everywhere. And then we you know, in California, we’re not even we’re not even going to start with talking about the plastic people. No, I’m kidding around. Plastic pretty much is everywhere, and it from our clothes to our, our water to to obviously our packaging.

Yeah, the United States is the number one generator of plastic waste globally. So we really have a big responsibility here to tackle this issue for the sake of our planet, and communities, but also, you know, for the sake of our climate.

Right, you know, I don’t understand why America is is the number one contributor to plastic destruction in our environment and plastic creation. But I want to address that, that topic as we come back. Again, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern and I’m your guest host Harry Artin. We have our fantastic guest all about plastics today today, Anja Brandon PhD with US plastics Policy Analyst with Ocean Conservancy and we’ll be right back.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. I’m your guest host Harry Artin and we have our fantastic guests coming back here, Anja Brandon PhD, US plastics Policy Analyst with Ocean Conservancy.

Now, the question again, Anya, that I had before the break was that Why is America the number one offender when it comes to plastics?

Yeah, if we think about it, we are a very kind consumer and convenience driven culture. We buy a lot of things and we’d like for it to be as convenient and easy as possible. This kind of dots started, you know, really, back just after World War Two, with our disposable culture, you know, clean up culture, you know, it’s simple and easy don’t need to wash dishes, you’ll have a TV tray that you can then throw away every time. So it really started decades and decades ago and has continued to this day.

You know, earlier this week, there was a ton of sales on a particular large e commerce site. And so going out across the country, we will see tons and tons of products packaged, you know, sometimes in an individual package, and then in a plastic mailer, and then sometimes in another, you know, with plastic, there’s little like plastic air pillows inside to protect them. So we just use and buy a ton and ton of things, which leads to a ton of plastic waste.

That coupled with historic underinvestment in our recycling systems, means that our national average recycling rate for plastics is well below 10%, you know, kind of varies on the year in which data you’re looking at. But it hovers somewhere close to 8%. So only 8% of our plastics end up getting recycled, which means everything else is getting disposed or ending up in our environment as pollution.

That’s ridiculous. Well, what is the rate of let’s say, plastic recycling in China?

No, I don’t actually know. For China, probably Europe, off the top of my head in Europe, they have a lot of these policies that California just passed called extended producer responsibility. And that’s this idea that holds these plastic producers accountable for the end of life of their products.

And, and investing in our recycling systems. So Europe tends to have somewhere about like a four to six times higher average recycling rate than us. Before their plastics, because of these extended producer responsibility laws that they’ve had for decades, the first countries in Europe started passing these EPR policies back in the 1990s.

Wow, wow. Wow. You know, going back to now, SB four Senate Bill 54. SB 54. In California, what do you think makes it unique? And why are people calling it the strongest plastics legislation?

Yeah, this bill is really unique, as we talked about, because it, it’s the first bill that will require less single use plastics to be made in the first place. So 25% Less single use plastics and the state of California over the next 10 years, coupled with this idea of extended producer responsibility, so holding plastic producers accountable for the financial end of life of their products, that, you know, will help California transition to a circular economy.

As part of that it will require that all packaging in the state be actually recyclable, or actually compostable. So making sure that all of the packaging we see on our shelves, could be part of our circular economy. And then requiring that plastics actually get recycled at a really high rate 65% recycling rate by 2032. So way higher than our national average.

And then the last really unique piece of SB 54 is hundreds and millions of dollars of environmental mitigation funding, to, you know, repair the historic and current harm of plastic pollution in our communities in California and also in our ecosystems. So really investing $5 billion over the next 10 years, and undoing some of that past harm from plastic pollution and production.

So as before, the official title is the plastic pollution prevention and packaging producer Responsibility Act. And again, to sum it up, why I mean, why do you think it’s going to be so effective? And and how do you think and you do see how do we implement that in in in states across this great United States?

Yeah, I think it’s gonna be really effective, in part because so many stakeholders were involved in writing this law. Senator Ben Allen, who is the lead author of this bill, his wonderful staffer, got on we’ve had him on the show twice.

You know, how great he can be, or is on these environmental issues. So his wonderful staffer, Tina, gathered 25 of us 25 different stakeholders. All interested in this work from different spectrums from across, you know, across the aisle to sit down and really hammer out what is the strongest policy and what is best for California at the end of the day.

And I think that process of going through negotiation really made this the strongest bill, and really ensured that there was buy in, from the environmental side, from local governments from waste, you know, waste management, facilities and haulers, all the way down to industry. So I really think that process is really unique, and it’s going to be important to replicate other places.

California is now the fourth state to pass extended producer responsibility legislation. Maine and Oregon were the first to last year and Colorado passed EPR, a little bit earlier this year. But California is the first one to do this extended producer responsibility and plastic source reduction. So requiring that less plastics be used.

Now what you know, again, whether you’ve answered this fully or not, but why is recycling alone? Not enough to solve this problem?

Yeah, that’s a great question. Recycling, you know, especially as envisioned right now, was kind of always doomed to fail. You know, when you and I check out at a store, we may be bringing home chips wrapped in a plastic fill me out of one material, you know, a rigid container of yogurt made out of another material, and a carton of berries, we have yet another material, right.

And our recycling system that’s supposed to manage all of that waste, is funded by you and I, as taxpayers, and as ratepayers. So, you know, we historically have not invested enough in our recycling system to make it capable of handling all of those different types of plastics that we’re trying to throw at it. So we do need to invest in our recycling system as part of the solution.

But ultimately, that’s really not enough, because we know we are just making too many plastics in the first place. So even if we could recycle a ton of the plastics, it is unsustainable for our climate and our climate crisis, to keep making and using this much plastic, and there’s tons of plastics out there that are just not going to be able to be recycled, which is why it’s important that we reduce and get rid of those harmful plastics. And instead, you know, simplify and only use the plastics that we know that couldn’t be recycled.

Right, and what can we do? What more can be done on the government level to help have like a, you know, a trash free see what what do you think other governmental measures that can be enacted?

Yeah, you know, I think the rest of the government, the federal government, other states really need to take a look at what California has been doing. California has been in a great leader, both with this bill, but also, you know, passed legislation, California is one of the few states so far that has really defined what is recyclable.

What gets to be labeled as recyclable. It’s such a simple question. We all turn over a plastic packaging, or a bottle, and you see a number of the little chasing arrows. And we all assume that means we can put it in the recycling. But that’s not always the case. Producers can just put those little chasing arrows on things, regardless of whether or not it’s recyclable, on so it’s really that type of misleading labeling or greenwashing and California is really stepping up to crack down on that, and other countries or other governments really need to follow suit.

We also need to address those microplastics that we’ve been talking about. And I think there’s going to be a big role for the government in thinking about how we prevent that type of plastic from getting out into our environment.

So like, in general, what more can we do as citizens to prevent in general more plastics from harming harming the oceans? What can we do besides, you know, the governmental level but us as citizens?

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think, like climate change. Sometimes thinking about individual actions, such a big issue can be really daunting. So what can one person you know, what can we do as one person? Well, I tried to encourage people to think about, you know, one action, try to just focus in on what you as one person can do one action each day.

Find something that gets you fired up or makes you passionate and happy and there’s keep taking that one action, whether that’s emailing your representatives about taking policy action, bringing a reusable tote bag to the store, or getting involved in a beach cleanup, and then I would encourage any of your listeners, those who are interested in learning more or taking other action to go to Ocean Conservancy dot o RG and click the take action button to learn about ways they can get involved.

Beautiful.

OceanConservancy.org and then click on the take action button.

Oh great. Anya, we’ve had a on your brand and it’s been terrific having on the show. Thank you so much for bringing attention to this extremely important topic of plastics and the destruction of plastics in our environment.

And we hope to talk to you again soon and thank you and good luck with your work at Ocean Conservancy. Thank you for coming on Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yes.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 8446544968446544968.