Single-use throwaway plastic products and packaging are everywhere. And who has to pay to clean up the mess they leave behind? We all do. Donate to our September Drive to help move our country beyond plastic. Donate today:
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Friend,
Single-use throwaway plastic products and packaging are polluting our communities and our environment. And who's usually left to pay to clean up the mess?
You do. I do. We all do -- except for the companies that produce all this plastic in the first place.
PIRG and our supporters are working to make the producers of all this plastic take responsibility for their mess. To make sure we have the resources to challenge polluters and waste-makers -- and win -- we've set a goal of raising $10,000 by midnight tonight.
And until midnight, your gift to PIRG will be matched by generous donors, dollar for dollar, doubling your impact up to $10,000 nationwide. Make your matched donation now.
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Our country is the world's largest plastic polluter, generating approximately 42 million metric tons of plastic waste annually.[1]
That's enough plastic to fill America's largest football stadium to the brim with waste between the time you wake up and the time you go to bed -- every single day.[2]
And what's more, the plastics industry has known for decades that the vast majority of plastic -- upwards of 90% -- couldn't or wouldn't be recycled. Yet it continues to beat the drum for consumer recycling as the solution rather than reducing their own production of single-use plastics.[3,4]
Let's take a closer look at some of the companies contributing to our plastic waste crisis:
* Amazon: Amazon's popularity soared thanks to its unparalleled convenience, but its products aren't the only thing it's same-day shipping to us. This major online retailer generated nearly 600 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2020, up to 23.5 million pounds of which ended up in our oceans. That's the equivalent of dumping one Amazon delivery truck's worth of waste into the ocean almost every hour. As one of the largest online retailers in the world, Amazon has the power to not only stop its plastic pollution, but spur the entire industry to do the same.5,6] [Donate to our September Drive today>>
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* Keurig Dr Pepper: As one of the leading beverage brands in our country, Keurig Dr Pepper and its subsidiary companies were estimated to produce 208,000 metric tons of plastic packaging in 2018. And while the company as taken some initial steps in the right direction, it needs to be doing more to counter the mountains of plastic waste that are generated everyday.7] [Donate to our September Drive today>>
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* Costco: In 2021, the major wholesale retailer Costco received an "F" from As You Sow for its lack of effort to reduce single-use plastic packaging in its stores. Nothing we use for a few minutes should threaten our health and pollute our future for hundreds of years. But Costco's plastic bags, lids and bottles are unnecessarily contributing to the amount of plastic pollution piling up in landfills and littering our streets and waterways.8] [Donate to our September Drive today>>
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Friend, will you help us raise $10,000 by midnight tonight to help us move our country beyond plastic? Donate before midnight and your gift will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $10,000 nationwide.
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The good news is that at PIRG, we're making a difference in a big way. We've helped lead the charge to ensure that a third of our country now lives in a state with a robust ban on one or more kinds of single-use plastics.
And along with our national network, we've mobilized tens of thousands of Americans to urge major plastics producers like the ones listed above to cut single-use plastics out of their operations.
Will you stand up to polluters and waste-makers by making a matched donation to PIRG today?
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Thank you for all that you do,
Faye Park
President
1. Oliver Milman, "'Deluge of plastic waste': U.S. is the world's biggest plastic polluter," The Guardian, December 1, 2021.
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2. "Trash in America," U.S. PIRG, September 30, 2021.
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3. Laura Sullivan, "How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled," NPR, September 11, 2020.
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4. Laura Parker, "A Whopping 91 Percent of Plastic Isn't Recycled," National Geographic, July 5, 2019.
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5. Ben Gilbert, "Amazon created 599 million pound of plastic waste in 2020, Business Insider, December 15, 2021.
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6. Justine Calma, "Amazon generates millions of pounds of plastic packaging," The Verge, December 15, 2020.
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7. Barbara Smith, "Keurig Dr Pepper commits to cutting new plastic use in packaging," Food Dive, April 13, 2021.
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8. "2021 Corporate Plastic Pollution Scorecard," As You Sow, September 29, 2021.
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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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U.S. PIRG
Main Office: 1543 Wazee St., Suite 460, Denver, CO 80202, (303) 801-0582
Federal Advocacy Office: 600 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, 4th Fl., Washington, DC 20003, (202) 546-9707
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