SAN FRANCISCO— Members of the national coalition behind the Presidential Plastics Action Plan will gather outside the Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco office on Monday to deliver speeches and more than 100,000 petitions calling for President Biden and his administration to adopt the plan.
The coalition of some 600 community and conservation groups developed the plan last year and delivered it to the administration in December. It calls for Biden to take eight executive actions to combat the plastic pollution crisis, including a ban on new plastic production facilities, using federal purchasing power to curb single-use plastics, tightening up regulation of the petrochemical industry, ending fossil fuel subsidies and protecting vulnerable communities from pollution.
“President Biden has taken some laudable actions on climate change and environmental justice, but ignoring plastic is a big mistake,” said Stephanie Prufer, a political organizer with the Center for Biological Diversity, which helped create the plan. “Plastic production pollutes frontline communities and keeps driving the climate crisis when we need to be doing everything we can to fight the life-threatening dominance of fossil fuels. It’s time to act.”
WHAT: The Presidential Plastics Action Plan coalition presents more than 100,000 petitions of support and discusses the urgency of executive action on plastic pollution and production.
Visuals will include colorful banners and signs, an appearance by “President Biden,” and jars filled with 100,000-plus plastic nurdles, some of the billions that Formosa Plastics illegally discharged into Texas waterways.
WHEN: Monday, May 3, 10 a.m.
WHERE: Steps outside the Environmental Protection Agency, 75 Hawthorne St, San Francisco, CA 94105; it will also be livestreamed on Facebook at biodiv.us/plastic-free-live
WHO: Speakers from the Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, Earthworks, and the Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research and Education (COARE)
The Presidential Plastics Action Plan responds to the plastic industry’s aggressive expansion of facilities using the country’s oversupply of fracked gas to make throwaway plastic that fills our oceans, landfills and landscapes. Petrochemical-plastic projects harm frontline communities with toxic air and water pollution and worsen the climate crisis.