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Banning Plastic
Summary
This legal article argues that outright bans on single-use plastics are the most effective policy tool for reducing plastic pollution, examining how local, state, and national bans create regulatory tipping points. While not a field study, it is directly relevant to the microplastics problem because fewer plastic products entering the environment means less feedstock for the microplastic particles that contaminate ecosystems and human food chains.
The disgusting nature of plastic pollution has finally captured the attention of policymakers and driven legal change. Local, state, and national bans on various plastic consumer items coupled with voluntary industry switching creates momentum toward a full-scale end to unnecessary plastic products. Bans have the capacity to create an important tipping point. This Article extolls the effectiveness of consumer bans and explores the challenges to achieving this highest level of environmental control. Plastic is essentially pure petroleum.1 Its persistence and destructiveness in the environment presents unique reasons to eliminate its use altogether. Plastics should only be used for essential products for which we have no replacements. The evidence is clear that banning single-use plastic products achieves environmental protection with negligible impact on consumers. The harm caused along the full lifecycle of plastic requires an appropriate regulatory response. This Article argues for a ban of non-essential plastics to address the scope and scale of plastic pollution facing the world today.