John,
Today is Earth Day. It's the perfect time to reflect: What kind of a planet do we want future generations to inherit?
The choice is ours. We can leave behind a world where 57 million tons of plastic pollution are produced each year, piling up in landfills and polluting our environment.1 Or, we can work to move beyond plastic and build a safer, healthier future.
At PIRG, we're choosing to work toward a future where wasteful plastic is a thing of the past.
We have decades of experience campaigning for real change: Phasing the single-use plastics we can all live without, calling on companies to cut plastic out of their operations, and holding plastic producers responsible for their waste.
But it's supporters like you who make it possible, John. Give before the deadline at midnight tonight, and generous donors will match your gift, up to $10,000 nationwide.
Thank you for making our work possible,
Faye Park
President
1. Seth Borenstein, "The world is producing 57 million tons of plastic pollution per year, new study finds," PBS News, September 4, 2024.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: U.S. PIRG <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Subject: Tell Costco: Excessive packaging is absurd and wasteful
To: John xxxxxx <[email protected]>
 |
John,
How long do they expect us to keep falling for it?
I'm talking about the companies that make and sell plastic. They've told us for 30 years that we can recycle our way out of the plastic waste problem. Yet since the year 2000, the amount of global plastic waste has more than doubled to a staggering 353 million tons.1,2
Imagine a Great Pyramid of Giza. Now imagine 60 of them. That's what 353 million metric tons of plastic waste looks like.
We're not buying the plastic industry's "recycle our way out of this mess" pitch and neither should you.
That's why generous donors are matching gifts to our Earth Day Giving Drive, up to $10,000 nationwide -- but only until midnight. Donate now and double your impact.
Here's a fact: Only 5% of plastics in the United States are successfully recycled.3
The rest piles up in landfills, in oceans and along roads, parks and sidewalks. And because the industry is only recycling 5% of its plastic into new products, this means more drilling for oil and gas to make more plastic, adding an air and water pollution problem to the equation.
For people like you and me who care about keeping our communities clean and healthy, plastic waste is not just unsightly, it's worrisome and it's frustrating.
To solve our plastic problem, we have to make less plastic in the first place and hold plastic producers accountable for their wasteful practices. Will you help support our campaign with a matched donation to our Earth Day Giving Drive today?
If you've ever tried to go a day without plastic (or even just leave the grocery store with less of it), you'll know that it's pretty much impossible to avoid. We're working to change that, and the good news is, we've already made progress:
- Twelve states have passed restrictions on single-use plastic bags, eleven states have started phasing out expanded polystyrene containers, and more are considering similar steps. Today, more than one-third of the U.S. population lives in a state that's phasing out at least one kind of single-use plastic.4
- In July 2021, Maine became the first state in the U.S. to pass a law establishing producer responsibility for packaging and paper products, shifting responsibility for the costs of recycling away from the taxpayer and onto the corporations responsible for producing those products. Since then, four states and counting have passed similar legislation.5
- Packaging accounts for 40% of the world's plastic waste.6 Last year we helped convince Amazon to commit to phasing out some of their single-use plastic packaging, which will save thousands of tons of plastic from going to landfills every year. We're pushing them to do more, and pushing other companies to reduce their plastic waste.7,8
It's important that we all play our part -- on Earth Day, we're reminded of just how true that is. But consumers can't carry all of the responsibility when plastic companies are producing thousands of tons of waste every year.
Our Earth Day Giving Drive is the best time to help fund our campaign to expose the truth about plastic and hold the industry accountable for the harm its products cause. When you donate before midnight, generous donors will match your gift, doubling your impact up to $10,000 nationwide.
Thank you,
Faye Park
President
1. Dharna Noor, "'They lied': plastics producers deceived public about recycling, report reveals," The Guardian, February 15, 2024.
2. "Plastic pollution is growing relentlessly as waste management and recycling fall short, says OECD," Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, February 22, 2022.
3. Nina Lakhani, "Only 5% of plastic waste generated by US last year was recycled, report says," The Guardian, October 24, 2022.
4. "Reducing plastic waste in the states," PIRG, July 26, 2022.
5. "Trash in America," PIRG, September 28, 2021.
6. Veronika Samborska, "Packaging is the source of 40% of the planet's plastic waste," Our World in Plastic.
7. Jenn Engstrom, "Statement: Amazon to phase out single-use plastic padded shipping bags," PIRG, July 19, 2023.
8. "Costco makes new commitments to reduce plastic use," PIRG, October 12, 2023.
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 toxic pesticides 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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