Last week, the Surfrider Foundation submitted a comment letter signed by 55 environmental and environmental justice organizations in support of U.S Senator Tom Udall and U.S. Representative Alan Lowenthal's outline of legislation to tackle the plastic waste pollution crisis. The letter was created with substantial input from many of the co-signer organizations.
By drawing upon the collective experience of leading organizations engaged in plastic pollution policy, the letter provides key insights into the best policy examples for each of the categories addressed in the outline. For example, Oregon's bottle deposit bill was put forth as one of the best examples of a bottle bill, where the deposit is 10 cents and the capture rate is 81 percent. Also, Oregon started a BottleDrop Refillables program this year, where a subset of glass bottles returned are washed and refilled.
As background, the lawmaker's outline was released in July and sought input and reactions from stakeholders. Surfrider plans to remain engaged on this federal policy outline as legislation takes shape, then support introduction of legislation in the fall. Our campaign page for this legislation will be updated as we have more information. Stay tuned!
