Situation: Currently we dump 8 million metric tons of plastic in the oceans annually. That breaks down to about one garbage truck dumped every minute.
We continue to produce plastic at an ever increasing rate, we have created 9 billion tons since plastics came into being. The first piece of plastic is still in circulation and is now one of the trillions of micro-particles floating in out oceans.
This is clearly unattainable, right now everyone of us has a credit card sized deposit of plastic in our bodies. With plastic is in everything we eat, this is only going up.
Ocean animals like turtles, birds and fish consume a steady of plastic particles, not having evolved with plastic in their environment, they think it's food. Even whales are dying with high amounts of plastic in their guts, thinking they are eating jellyfish instead. Mass extinction looms asa distinct possibility.
If we continue to make plastic and "dispose" of it with our current "system" we could end life on this planet.
Recycling has collapsed with China refusing to accept any more of our plastic waste. There is no financial incentive for recycling that is now less than 10% of what is discarded. Plastic now goes right to the landfill and then to the ocean.
Solution: Place an escalating fee on all plastic products, collected by the Federal Government from all and any plastic manufactures, to fund reducing plastic waste and to subsidize a national recycling program that deals with all plastic waste.
Also tap into all fossil fuel subsidies to help with recycling program funding, which total more than the entire military budget. Since plastic is a fossil fuel product, and since a huge amount of fracking is for plastic production, this portion of the subsidy should be in the 25%+ range, or $175+ billion.
This petition calls for establishing the National Recycling Program that will study and fund methods of rapid ocean cleanup and effective and profitable recycling projects and businesses.
This petition calls for one million signatures.
