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https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20190&cosponId=29386
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House of Representatives
Session of 2019 - 2020 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: April 25, 2019 05:24 PM
From: Representative Christopher M. Rabb
To: All House members
Subject: Creating a Plastic Pollution Task Force
 
Each year, Americans throw away 35 billion plastic water bottles and a total of nearly 30 million tons of plastic. In addition, more than 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide each year. These numbers are startling.

The effects of this discarded plastic on our planet, including marine and other wildlife, is perhaps even more startling. Recently, a dead whale washed up on shore in Italy that had 75 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Unfortunately, similar events occur on a regular basis throughout the world. It’s time to say that we’ve had enough.

It’s time to say no more to single-use plastics that are destroying our planet.

In and effort to deal with this real and worsening crisis, I will be proposing legislation that would create a Plastic Pollution Task Force in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to study a variety of issues, such as reducing the amount of plastic entering the waste stream, reducing and removing existing plastic pollution, and restoring ecosystems that have been damaged by plastic pollution. While this legislation may not eliminate plastic-related pollution, it would be a big step forward in addressing this environmental problem.

Please join me in supporting a task force that would help us to figure out how we can go from polluters to restorers.



Introduced as HB1611