National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution

The National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution: Part Three of a Series on Building a Circular Economy for All provides an ambitious, equitable approach to reduce and recover plastics and other materials,1 as well as prevent plastic pollution from harming human health and the environment. Plastic pollution has accumulated over time and will continue to grow as plastic production increases. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projects that, without interventions, global plastic use and waste will almost triple by 2060. Because most plastic products are not reused or recycled, many will end up incinerated, disposed of in landfills, or leaked into the environment, negatively impacting terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems. The production, use and disposal of plastic products also contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions, and there are significant human health concerns associated with plastic pollution across the lifecycle of plastic products. For decades, EPA has worked to protect human health and the environment from air and water pollution and solid and hazardous waste created throughout this lifecycle. Recognizing the need to take further action to address plastic pollution, Congress passed the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act in December 2020. The Act directed EPA to develop a national strategy to address this problem.

EPA developed the National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution drawing on decades of efforts to conserve materials and resources and prevent and reduce pollution. These efforts were made possible by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and other statutes designed to protect human health and the environment. Together with EPA’s National Recycling Strategy, the National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution presents a 10-year vision of opportunities for voluntary and regulatory actions that can be taken by businesses; nongovernmental organizations; federal, Tribal, state, local and territorial governments; academia; and consumers. Together, these U.S. entities could eliminate the release of plastic waste from land and sea-based sources into the environment by 2040.2 These opportunities consist of interventions across the entire plastics lifecycle to reduce the U.S. contribution of plastic pollution into the environment, including the air, land and ocean. In July 2024, the White House released Mobilizing Federal Action on Plastic Pollution: Progress, Principles, and Priorities, a government-wide report on combatting plastic pollution at production, processing, use and disposal that puts forth a number of opportunities for federal action at the programmatic and operational levels to reduce plastic pollution. The report and EPA’s national strategy work together to reduce plastic pollution from the United States throughout the plastics lifecycle.