Banned Statewide Expanded Polystyrene and Microbeads. Next Stop, EPR!
After collecting numerous Chesapeake Bay water samples containing tiny plastic microbeads, Trash Free Maryland led a coalition and successfully advocated for a Nation-leading ban on polluting plastic microbeads in personal care products in Maryland.
Other early Trash Free Maryland efforts targeted problematic polystyrene foam food packaging and helped enact local bans because of the unique risk of foam food packaging litter breaking down into microplastics in the environment.
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Trash Free Maryland built on its early local campaigns to achieve a first in the Nation – a statewide ban on expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam food containers. And with subsequent cleanups we could see firsthand the impact this policy had as food packaging foam pieces have started to become less prevalent in our litter.
Product bans have contributed to significant environmental victories, and community cleanups help educate and increase awareness, but without a systemic approach it’s hard to keep up with the pace of new products and plastic packaging entering the marketplace and contributing to litter and microplastic pollution.
That’s why Trash Free Maryland is championing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging as a newer approach to our single-use packaging trash crisis.
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Extended producer responsibility for packaging is an environmental policy that holds producers financially accountable for the environmental impact of the packaging they produce.
EPR for packaging can incentivize design innovations for recyclability and sustainability, fund recycling infrastructure modernization, and shift the financial burden of managing almost ⅓ of our waste stream (packaging) from local governments and consumers to brands and producers.
How can you support this work?
Let’s clean up and collect data to support more environmental policies that work! We’ll use our Real Time Recall method to tally packaging waste as we pick up litter with local small business brewery partners in South Baltimore.
📍Location: Lot O, 701 W Ostend St, Baltimore, MD
🗓️Date: Saturday, November 30, 2024
⏰Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Support our fundraising goals for this Giving Tuesday month of giving. When you give at any level, you're supporting more education, community-building, and data-driven policy development like EPR for packaging.
Together, we’ve tackled microbeads and EPS foam food containers. Now, it’s time to tackle packaging waste. With your support, we’ll make Maryland trash free, one cleanup and one policy at a time.
With gratitude,
Trash Free Maryland Team
