The White House Has a Plan to Slash Plastic Use in the U.S.

Calling plastic pollution one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, the Biden administration on Friday said that the federal government, the biggest buyer of consumer goods in the world, would phase out purchases of single-use plastics.

The administration also said it planned tougher regulations on plastic manufacturing, which releases planet-warming greenhouse gases and other dangerous pollutants.

The efforts, which the White House called the first comprehensive strategy to tackle plastic use nationwide, aim to reduce demand for disposable plastic items while also helping to create a market for substitutes that are reusable, compostable or more easily recyclable.

Brenda Mallory, who heads the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement that the changes would “require unprecedented action at every stage of the plastic life cycle.” Because of its purchasing power, the White House added, “the federal government has the potential to significantly impact the supply of these products.”

The emphasis on curbing plastic use mirrors a growing recognition that the world can’t recycle or manage its way out of a deluge of plastic waste. Global plastic production rose nearly 230-fold between 1950 and 2019, to more than 400 million tons a year, and is expected to quadruple from current levels by 2050. An estimated 40 percent of that is single-use plastic, which makes up the bulk of the world’s plastic waste.