The US Returns to Plastics
US President Trump has signed an executive order aimed at encouraging his administration and consumers to buy plastic straws, rolling back his predecessor's efforts to phase out single-use plastics and combat waste.
U.S. President Trump signed an executive order aimed at encouraging his administration and consumers to purchase plastic straws and to reverse his predecessor's efforts to phase out single-use plastics and combat waste.
While signing the order at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump told journalists that "we are going back to plastic straws," saying that paper straws "don't work." He added: "I don't think plastic is going to affect sharks that much, because they're going about their business in the ocean."
Trump's Democratic predecessor, President Joe Biden, had proposed environmental measures to reduce consumption of single-use plastics that harm ecosystems and contaminate food sources and cannot be biologically decomposed. The Biden administration also supported a global agreement aimed at limiting plastic production.
This executive order was part of Trump's broader effort to weaken Biden's environmental commitments, having withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time. Trump also revoked the Biden administration's policy to end the use of all single-use plastic products on federal lands by 2032.
Dozens of countries have banned various types of single-use plastics, mainly produced through petrochemicals, used in the manufacture of shopping bags, bottles, and other disposable items.
According to an OECD study published last year, without new controls in place, the amount of plastic waste released into the environment is expected to increase from 81 million tonnes in 2020 to 119 million tonnes in 2040.
Negotiations for a global agreement to control plastic pollution concluded unsuccessfully last year, with major plastic-producing countries reluctant to commit to binding production caps.
Negotiations are scheduled to continue this year, but Aleksandar Rankovic, director of the environmental advocacy organization Common Initiative, said he would not be surprised if Washington withdrew from the negotiations.
Rankovic said: "With the new administration's pro-oil and gas stance, it can be expected that the U.S. will move closer to countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia and oppose the adoption of global targets aimed at reducing plastic production."
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