In 2021, when Democrats controlled the General Assembly and Ralph Northam was governor, they approved a bill banning single-use plastic containers – including polystyrene foam used for take-out orders. That ban was supposed to begin in 2023 – and at the non-profit Environment Virginia, state director Elly Boehmer Wilson was pleased.
“Plastics don’t decompose,” she explains. “They break down into little pieces that remain on this earth forever, and so we are consuming what’s estimated at a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.”
And, she says, the stuff is dangerous for wildlife – turtles, birds and marine mammals that mistake it for food.
“It fills up their stomach, so they have the sensation of being full, but they actually starve to death. Whether it be a turtle or a washed ashore whale, when they open up the stomach they see it’s jam-packed with plastic.”
Because it’s lightweight trash that’s easily blown from garbage cans and trucks, and because there’s so much of it, she adds, plastic pollution has become a big problem.
“Whether it’s intentional litter or if you walk down your alley and see that – even though it’s lined with trash cans – there are still little pieces of plastic everywhere.”
Wilson reports the legislation was popular with the public, but when Republicans took control of the state house and governor’s mansion, they pushed the start date to 2025. Now, Glenn Youngkin wants the ban to begin in 2028 for big companies and 2030 for smaller ones. Environmentalists hope to stop this new delay.
“Nothing we use for just a couple of minutes should be polluting our planet and our bodies for generations to come,” Wilson concludes.
