U.S. Plastic Public Policy Essay

Introduction

Worldwide environmental issues have relatively recently become some of the main concerns of global public policy. As soon as scholars from all over the world realized that our planet has been suffering from exhaustive human activity, they started to attract citizens to the issue of global pollution. According to the researchers, since the early 1990s, citizens have become active participants of the global environmental policy as the matter was directly connected to their activities and health conditions (Gunderson, 2018). Such an intervention has become quite successful in terms of fighting environmental issues, and it is still regarded as one of the major ways to bring ecological awareness to the masses.

One of the most severe and widespread ecological hazards of the decade is the problem of plastic usage. Activists, governors, and celebrities across the globe are now trying to promote the responsible consumption of plastic items and their overall replacement on the level of everyday life and households. Speaking of the plastic policy in the US, there now exist a lot of ecological campaigns and bans on using plastic bags on the individual level (Li & Richter, 2015).

However, there are still a lot of economic milestones the government has to overcome in order to achieve an ecologically appropriate environmental policy. The amount of plastic used by industries, as well as the average incomes of the vast majority of Americans, are now holding the plastic policy back. Thus, the key issue thesis would be that the systems towards ecological awareness now only exist at the stage of their development and need more action and recognition from both the government and the public.

The Scope and Nature of the Problem

It is complicated to overestimate the scope of negative implications plastic pollution brings to the global community. Since its invention at the beginning of the 20th century, plastics have become part and parcel of almost every aspect of human life, whether it is home supplies, food, or office chancellery. The economic and materialistic availability of plastics has led to such a global expansion on the market that it is now almost impossible to be eradicated from worldwide usage.

Plastic pollution concerns nearly every aspect of the environment, including the air and marine ecosystem. While scholars are trying to define for how long the earth could exist with the current level of plastic consumption, world citizens are trying to help the environment on the local level. Although each country understands the hazardous impact of the substance on the environment, almost no one can prohibit plastic usage on the governmental level due to the absence of equally cheap and available substitutes.

Speaking of the scope of the issue, it is now evident that the residents and leaders of almost every nation are well informed about the negative implications of plastic. For instance, China, being one of the most influential manufacturers on the global market, is now getting more concerned with the level of plastic exported for recycling (Raubenheimer, McIlorm, & Oral, 2018). The US, in turn, is questioned about the consumption of plastic bags, as according to the statistics, people throw away 100 billion bags yearly (Li & Richter, 2015).

Apart from coping with the issue on the legislative level, the country’s residents are trying to prevent the ecological catastrophe with the help of launching green projects and opening non-governmental organizations. Thus, the scale of the plastic policy on the public level is growing bigger with each day, while the issue itself is getting considerably worse.

How the Problem Came to Public and Political Awareness

Only a few decades ago, the global community was not aware of the fact that their actions could damage the planet to such an extent that it may be destroyed. However, at the beginning of the current decade, researchers and ecological activists were shocked by the amount of plastic waste thrown away to landfills without the opportunity to be organically decomposed. According to data presented in 2015, 6.3 billion plastic waste had been thrown away, and only 21% of this amount was recycled or used for other purposes (Jia, Evans, & Linden, 2019). The impact of such emission was also visible in the marine ecosystem as plastic items started to float on the surface and kill marine residents.

After the revelation of the statistics, the politics of the leading nations could not stay aside as they were not absolutely aware that plastic was not disastrous for the world residents. One of the significant legislative powers of that time, the United Nations Environmental Programme, launched a series of projects towards ways of greening the global environment. World-leading non-European countries such as Canada, or the US, started their programs of ecologically safe consumption.

Speaking of the US policies, which are mostly concerned with the ban of plastic use on a personal level, they are not as efficient as they were intended to be according to the proposed agenda. In 2017, only 18 states agreed to ban the usage of plastic bags on the legislative level, while the vast majority of the country still severely pollutes the environment (Li & Zhao, 2017). Hence, the vision of the world system free from the serious environmental damage of plastics remains a utopian thesis.

The Evolution of the Plastic Policy

The usage of plastic in global manufacturing has become popular in the 1950s in such countries as the US and China. Accordingly, these two states are currently considered to be one of the biggest producers of plastic waste and hence, the most dangerous contributor to the worldwide pollution scale. European and Asian countries are now also considered pollution influencers, along with the two aforementioned leaders.

At the latest stage of its evolution, the environmental pollution state can be vividly seen on the example of marine plastic pollution. According to the statistics, the US and India, both having a relatively equal number of the coastal population, distinctly vary in the amount of plastic waste produced (Worm, Lotze, Jubinville, Wilcox, & Jambeck, 2017). First of all, data shows that US citizens produce approximately 3 kg of waste per day, where plastic waste takes 13%. India has indicators of nearly 500 g of waste, where plastic constitutes 3% of the overall weight.

While it may seem that the US contributes to global plastic pollution on a much higher level than India, only 2% of the citizens’ thrown waste is mismanaged. At the same time, India does not deal with 88% of marine plastic debris. Thus, the major environmental issue concerning government and the public today is, at least, the ways of responsible recycling of plastic waste, as the total plastic eradication now seems quite surreal.

Level of the Government and Actors Involved

Plastic environmental pollution has become a topic for ongoing discussion since 2015. In the beginning, the issue was fiercely discussed on the governmental level, and the political representatives of the world’s leading countries tried to take some immediate measures.

However, although administrative support is crucial in terms of environmental policies, the public is more efficient in the context of direct action towards pollution reduction. Thus, in order to raise the question of responsible and conscious consumption, opinion leaders from across the globe started their own campaigns or even foundations connected with environmental policy. In such a way, ordinary residents could be encouraged to act with the help of social media and celebrities’ opinions.

One of the most influential famous people, standing for the environmental protection and smart utilization of plastic waste, is Leonardo DiCaprio. Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation spends millions of dollars to save the marine ecosystem from toxic waste and litter.

In 2016, he even tried himself in a role of a producer for the documentary called “Before the Flood,” where the actor talks with the leading scientists in the field of climate change in order to share this crucial information with the world community (Stevens, 2016). Besides charity, DiCaprio also uses his social media platforms, especially his account on Instagram, which currently has more than 39 million followers, to share important news concerning pollution and climate change it causes.

The Intergovernmental Structure and Political Concerns

Although the idea of following celebrities in their eagerness to help the environment and presenting the struggle with pollution as a modern trend seems to be effective, it still cannot influence all the residents. For that purpose, politics and the main governmental bodies of the country started to implement various limitations on plastic usage and disposable. The ban of a single use of plastic bags on the territory of the US states seems to be one of the most efficient so far.

According to this environmental policy, residents and companies of the United States are legally obliged to eradicate plastic bag usage. Having started in 2015, the plan was supported by the local government of 18 states, including California, Colorado, and Virginia, and others.

The ideal implementation of the plan would be to guarantee that all the states follow the policy of the ban of single plastic use. However, the major milestone of its realization is the lack of proper environmental education among the country residents. Once all the US citizens are well aware of the drawbacks of plastic use, the plan will be implemented across the territory as the rising power of the state as a democratic system is people.

Approaches to Policy Adoption, Formulation, and Evaluation

American Chemistry Council, being one of the most influential organizations in terms of environmental policy, develops the idea of introducing the circular economy as one of the ways to cope with plastic pollution (Russell, 2018). As Steven Russell claims, converting plastic items used by people with the help of recycling is crucial for the potential reduction in the amount of harm they cause to the planet. The modern system of plastic manufacturing is, unfortunately, quite limited in the context of recycling, as some items are now difficult or almost impossible to recycle. One of the major steps, according to ACC, would be to replace the current ways of manufacturing with chemically recycled plastics.

The idea itself is beneficial, but its realization requires a lot of financial and scientific resources as producers all over the world now tend to use cheaper material for a better outcome. Thus, not all of them are eager to refuse ordinary plastics for the sake of environmental security. Potentially, public policy in such a context seems to be quite beneficial as the active promotion of ecological awareness may help in attracting investors and scientists to the issue. The public policy supporters would also draw ordinary residents’ attention to the alarming statistics and the actual harm they cause to the planet while using plastics.

Conflicting Public Opinion and Impact on Policy Solutions

The issue of the necessity of environmental collaboration of both government and manufacturers has now been considered as one of the most important for dealing with pollution and climate change it causes. Ryan Gunderson, an American sociologist, brings the idea of five major questions he believes to be crucial for this collaboration (Gunderson, 2018). The first question concerns the political-economic barriers, which stand in the way of effective environmental policy.

Gunderson believes that the absence of a policy structure, which could be adopted by any representative of the global community, stands in the way of beneficial ecological collaboration. The second question deals with the notion of reforming or creating institutions, which may help the development of the global policies as well as serve as a bridge for active communication of both legislative and economic systems. According to him, global environmental governance is only possible if participatory actions from various organizations are taken.

The answer to the third question helps to define who should participate in the system of global economic governance and how these participants should be selected. As the world population structure is very complex and unequal, it must be decided which global representatives are justifiably able to declare an opinion, potentially crucial for the whole planet. Although even the author finds it difficult to give a clear answer to the question, the main idea here would be to establish a system that respects and listens to any nation and world residence irrespective of location and other prejudice.

The fourth question concerns how exactly the global public should participate once the structure is defined. The author here focuses on the idea that the level of public influence on global issues now varies greatly, considering different nations and cultures. The main goal here would be to define a universal sphere of the impact of the issue. Last but not least, the fifth question deals with the criteria by which the effectiveness and the process of public policy may be evaluated.

There is no doubt the public inquiry into the current environmental struggle is invaluable. Still, there should be some markers that can help calculate what policies or actions need more recognition and what are unproductive in terms of actual change.

Future Policy Directions

To sum up, if to put these statements in the context of plastic policy issues, all of them are quite important for the further development of a chemical waste-free community. The policy itself needs a collaborative effort from all the social and governmental structures. However, taking the US plastic public policy into consideration, the ideas and projects developed in order to solve the issue seem quite reasonable but almost unproductive when it comes to realistic data. Thus, public involvement in the process of fighting against the harmful outcomes of plastic use is now crucial for the existing environmental system’s actual result visible for the state and the world in general.

References

Gunderson, R. (2018). Global environmental governance should be participatory: Five problems of scale. International Sociology, 33(6), 715-737.

Jia, L., Evans, S., & Linden, S. (2019). Motivating actions to mitigate plastic pollution. Nature Communications, 10, 1-3.

Li, Z., & Richter, J. S. (2015). Problem and countermeasure of promoting the plastic bag ban of USA. Applied Mechanics and Materials, 768, 787-796.

Li, Z., & Zhao, F. (2017). An analytical hierarchy process-based study on the factors affecting legislation on plastic bags in the USA. Waste Management & Research, 35(8), 795-809.

Raubenheimer, K., McIlgorm, A., & Oral, N. (2018). Towards an improved international framework to govern the life cycle of plastics. Reciel, 27, 210-221.

Russell, S. (2018). A circular economy for plastics? Plastics Engineering, 6-7.

Stevens, F. (Director). (2016). Before the flood. Web.

Worm, B., Lotze, H. K., Jubinville, I., Wilcox, C., & Jambeck, J. (2017). Plastic as a persistent marine pollutant. The Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 42, 1-26.