John,

The United States alone generates a staggering 42 million metric tons of plastic waste every single year. That makes us the world's biggest plastic polluter.1

It's time to double down on fighting the plastic waste crisis. This Earth Day, you'll hear a lot about personal actions we can take for the environment -- and those matter -- but we need corporations to do their part, too.

PIRG is doubling down on our campaigns to move our country beyond plastic, by passing policies to get polluters to make less plastic in the first place, and to hold them accountable for the pollution their products are designed to become.

Will you make a donation for Earth Day to help us put our planet over plastic?

Avoiding plastic is hard to do when the produce we bring home in reusable grocery bags is wrapped in plastic packaging, when products have far more plastic packaging than the size of the product is worth, or when the takeout food we order from a favorite restaurant is transported in polystyrene foam containers.

So much of this plastic is unnecessary, and designed to be used just once and thrown away. Even when we put it in the right bin, that's no guarantee it will be recycled -- in fact, most plastic isn't.2

Every part of that process needs to change -- and that means getting rid of the single-use plastics we just don't need, and getting corporations to take responsibility for the waste their products are designed to become.

In fact, just 20 companies are responsible for producing over half of all single-use plastic in the world.3

PIRG has decades of experience standing up for the public interest, and we know that we have what it takes to tackle a challenge as big as the plastic waste crisis. With your help, here's how we're going to get it done:

• Calling on major retailers, including Costco, Amazon and Whole Foods, to cut down on their wasteful packaging, and to get unnecessary single-use plastics out of their operations.
• Working to ban some of the worst single-use plastics in states across the country, and to hold companies responsible for the waste their products become. In the past year, our national network led the charge to pass a producer responsibility law in Colorado, and an important truth in recycling law in California.
• Campaigning against the growing practice of so-called "chemical recycling", in which plastic is burned and melted, releasing toxic chemicals and continuing our reliance on these materials.

But these campaigns will take resources to win, and we can't do it without your help. We've set a goal of raising $35,000 by Earth Day. Are you with us? Donate now.

Thank you for helping us put our planet over plastic,

Faye Park
President

1. Oliver Milman, "'Deluge of plastic waste': US is world's biggest plastic polluter," The Guardian, December 1, 2021.
2. "Plastics: Material-Specific Data," Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed March 30, 2022.
3. Sandra Laville, "Twenty firms produce 55% of world's plastic waste, report reveals," The Guardian, May 17, 2021.

Your donation will power our dedicated staff of organizers, policy experts and attorneys who drive all of our campaigns in the public interest, from banning Roundup and moving us beyond plastic, to saving our antibiotics and being your consumer watchdog, to protecting our environment and our democracy. None of our work would be possible without the support of people just like you.

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