Image above: plastic makes up a majority of the garbage that MountainTrue pulls out of its Trash Trout litter-collection device on Winkler Creek in Boone, NC.
Plastic pollution is a global problem, but we all need to be part of the solution.
Take action today, and call on the North Carolina General Assembly to enact a smart plastic reduction bill to reduce our reliance on cheap, single-use plastics and clean up our environment.
Single-use plastics are clogging up North Carolina’s rivers and streams. These plastic bottles, styrofoam cups, and plastic bags take hundreds of years to degrade, but they never really go away. Instead, they end up as microscopic fragments, films and fibers of plastic that end up in our environment, in our food system and even in our bodies.
We breathe in and consume approximately one credit card’s worth of microplastics each week. Though the health effects of this are largely unknown, plastics and the additives used to make them can be harmful or toxic to both wildlife and people. Studies have shown harmful effects on our respiratory, reproductive, and nervous systems.
Fortunately, there are bills before the North Carolina Senate (SB 451) and House of Representatives (HB 959) that would ban single-use plastic shopping bags, utensils, and styrofoam cups and packaging. Food packaging is a significant source of the plastics that we find in our rivers. If passed, these bills would help us reduce the amount of plastic in North Carolina’s environment.
