Page 46 - Plastics News November 2019

internAtionAL news

71% of California voters support Environmentalists plan pellet

tax on plastics manufacturers pollution lawsuit in South
according to survey Carolina

new survey of California voters found that 71 percent nvironmental groups in South Carolina say the state
A support key policies of a 2020 ballot initiative to tax Eand a company in charge of shipping plastic pellets
plastic manufacturers, officials with San Francisco-based isn’t doing enough to stop them from going into the
Recology said. The “California Recycling and Plastics Pollution harbor and showing up on the beaches around Charleston.
Reduction Act State officials said it was a “one-time accident,” but
of 2020” would environmental groups have been patrolling the beaches
assess a fee of and say the company continues to pollute the harbor.
up to 1 cent per South Carolina environmental officials have said a July
plastic package. spill of plastic pellets from a local packaging company
The fee could that littered beaches for miles was a one-time accident,
be passed on to but an investigation by the Charleston Waterkeeper
consumers in the shows the pollution is ongoing. Plastic pellets began
form of higher showing up on Lowcountry beaches in July, according
prices. Caryl to a lawsuit notice from the Charleston Waterkeeper
Hart and Linda and the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League.
Escalante, two State officials cited a packaging company, Frontier
commissioners with the California Coastal Commission, Logistics, for spilling the plastic “nurdles” in the water,
and Recology’s president and CEO Mike Sangiacomo filed the groups say, but that was not enough to make them
the initiative with the state attorney general’s office. stop. Lawyers with the Southern Environmental Law
Money from the fee would go toward environmental Center said in a letter to Frontier Logistics, the state
restoration and improving recycling infrastructure. Eric Department of Health and Environmental Control and the
Potashner, vice president of strategic affairs at Recology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that they plan to
said the company needs at least one optical scanner sue under the Clean Water Act. “We have evidence that
and machine learning technology so its machines can
do a better job of separating recycling from landfill
materials. The measure would also ban the distribution of
Styrofoam by food vendors and require all packaging be
compostable, reusable or recyclable by 2030. It would also
give CalRecycle the ability to reduce plastic packaging and
single-use plastic products through regulations. CalRecycle
administers and oversees California’s state-managed
recycling programs and non-hazardous waste handling.
The survey also found that 51 percent strongly favor the
initiative while 20 percent somewhat favor it. Twenty-four
percent oppose the measure The margin of error for the leads us to believe Frontier’s plastic pellets continue to
survey is plus or minus 3.5 percent. Researchers used a spill into our harbor,” Charleston Waterkeeper Andrew
95 percent confidence interval. The survey was conducted Wunderley said. “We find pellets everywhere we look,
between June 6 and June 13, 2019.Voters were asked, from Capers Island to Waterfront Park downtown,”
“Do you favor or oppose a proposal to reduce the use of he said in a press release. “Frontier must be held
packaging that cannot be recycled and generate funding accountable for polluting our harbor, beaches, and
for maintaining and expanding recycling, composting and waterways with its plastic pellets, especially when
beach clean-ups by charging manufacturers 1 cent for we have no state or local safeguards protecting our
every item they sell in California with disposable packaging waterways from plastic pellet pollution.”
that cannot be recycled?”

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