John,

In the U.S., we generate 35 million tons of plastic waste each and every year.1

We didn't ask for all this plastic waste, but we can't avoid it. If you've ever tried to go shopping without bringing home a big pile of unnecessary packaging, or if you've done any online shopping this holiday season, you know how hard it is to avoid wasteful plastic.

It's time for the producers responsible for flooding our lives with all this plastic "stuff" to take responsibility for the waste their products become -- and we need your help to make it possible, John.

We're raising $100,000 before the end of the year to fuel our campaigns to move our country beyond plastic. Will you donate to help keep this work going in the year ahead?

Just 20 companies are responsible for producing over half of all single-use plastic in the world.2 By convincing corporations and other plastic producers to cut back on wasteful plastic, we can make progress toward turning the plastic pollution crisis around.

After all, the first step when your bathtub is flooding over isn't to start mopping. The first thing you do is turn off the tap. We must stop the flood of plastic pollution at its source.

Imagine if we required producers to physically collect their products at the end of their use if they aren't readily recyclable. Or, if we required producers to pay fees based on their products' negative impact that would fund the collection and disposal of their products.

Such a system would incentivize the production of more sustainable alternatives to plastic and the reduction of how much material a packaging producer makes, period. It would promote the recycling of old materials into new.

And we already know it's possible. PIRG has helped lead the charge to win groundbreaking producer responsibility laws for packaging in Colorado, California and Oregon -- and our country could be next.3

Donate to our End of Year Drive today to help us meet our $100,000 goal and keep our campaigns to confront the plastic pollution crisis going strong.

But promoting producer responsibility isn't the only tool in our toolbox to confront the plastic pollution crisis at PIRG. Here are just a few of the campaigns your support makes possible:

• We're working to ban some of the worst forms of single-use plastic at the state level. Thanks to years of powerful advocacy, more than one-third of Americans now live in a state that has banned some type of single-use plastic. Donate today >>

• We're calling on major retailers to take unnecessary single-use plastic off their shelves. And we're making progress: Amazon now plans to phase out their blue and white plastic padded shipping bags. Costco has agreed to reveal some key statistics about its plastic use, a key first step towards phasing wasteful plastic out. Donate today >>

• We're advocating for federal action to tackle the plastic waste crisis, including the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act -- a bill that brings together great policies from expanded producer responsibility, to the phasing out of some harmful single-use products, and beyond. Donate today >>

It's clear that nothing we use for just a few minutes should be allowed to pollute our communities and threaten our health for hundreds of years. And together, we know we can make a more sustainable future possible.

Our End of Year Drive ends at midnight on Dec. 31. Donate today to help power the movement for a zero-waste future into 2024 and beyond.

Thank you,

Faye Park
President

1. "Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act reintroduced in Congress," PIRG, October 25, 2023.
2. Sandra Laville, "Twenty firms produce 55% of world's plastic waste, report reveals," The Guardian, May 17, 2021.
3. Jenn Engstrom and Laura Deehan, "California just passed an ambitious bill to tackle plastic pollution. Here’s what you need to know," PIRG, June 30, 2022.

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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