Nothing we use for a few minutes should threaten our health and pollute our future for hundreds of years.
Every day, people throw away tons of plastic “stuff”—cups, plates, bags, containers, forks, knives, spoons and more. All of this waste not only clogs our landfills, trashes our parks, and litters our streets, but it also washes into our rivers and oceans, where it can harm wildlife.
Recycling certainly can help mitigate the problem. But unfortunately, of the millions of tons of plastic we produce every year, most is currently not recyclable, and we produce vastly more waste than our recycling infrastructure can handle. As a society, we need to stop creating enormous quantities of unnecessary waste in the first place, rather than focus only on recycling and re-using waste after the fact.
The good news is that we have lots of alternatives to single-use plastic items that would prevent needless harm to the environment.
It’s Time To Stop Trashing Our Future
We’re calling for campus, city, and statewide bans on single use plastic products, including straws and take-out foam cups and containers.
Recent Victories
- In 2018, our chapters in the Northeast won a campaign to convince Dunkin Donuts to stop using foam cups by 2020.
- In 2020, we helped commit Durham Technical Community College to sign the Break Free From Plastic pledge making them the first community college in the country and the first school in NC to do so.
- In 2020, we got University of California campuses to announce they would start phasing-out single-use plastics, paving the way for campuses free of non-essential plastics by 2030.
- In 2022, we helped pass a landmark plastic pollution reduction bill in California that holds producers responsible for their plastic waste.
- In 2024, we helped pass an updated plastic bag ban in the state of California, banning all plastic grocery bags.
Join the Movement
Interested in getting your campus to sign the #BreakFreeFromPlastic campus pledge? Read more and fill out the interest form here.