Cigarette Filters, Straws Top Plastics Needing Bans, Group Says

Five single-use plastic items including straws and bags are contributing to ocean pollution and should be banned, environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy said in a Monday report.

With bans in the US on the items—cigarette butt filters, straws, cutlery, bags, and foam food ware—plastics usage would decrease by about 450 billion pieces each year, according to the report. That’s equivalent to cutting about 1.4 million tons of plastics.

These five specific products are the “most problematic” in terms of pollution, since they’re not reusable or recyclable, according to Anja Brandon, Ocean Conservancy’s US plastics policy associate director.

“They ultimately do not have a place in a circular economy that we’re trying to achieve,” Brandon said. “The only real way to address these items and keep them from continuing to be pollution in our ocean is to ban them.”

The report compiles 35 years of beach cleanup data from the organization’s annual International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), which began in 1986. During ICC, about 18 million volunteers worldwide collect more than 350 million pounds of trash, according to Brandon.

The cleanup has changed since its conception, but its mission remains unchanged: “To have an immediate positive impact on the health of the ocean and the communities that depend on it locally, and to provide critically important data and information that we can then use to actually drive policy change to keep plastics from getting in the ocean in the first place,” Brandon said.

The policy recommendations for curbing plastic range from full bans in the case of foam food ware to passing “by request” laws for plastic cutlery and straws.

Under a “by request” law, customers must actively request an item such as a straw instead of receiving it automatically.

“That small change can have a huge impact in terms of the number of straws that we use, and ultimately the number of straws or other items that end up in the environment,” Brandon said.

The five products recommended for bans are among the top 10 most frequently collected plastic items by ICC volunteers between 1986-2021. Other items on the most-collected list include food wrappers, drink bottles, and bottle caps.

Ocean Conservancy plans to release two other reports in a series identifying how to achieve plastic-free beaches. One will focus on redesigning plastics, and the other covers the policy changes needed to revamp recycling and waste management for a circular economy.

Nearly 70% of the most common items polluting beaches, including the five recommended for bans, are unrecyclable, according to a 2021 report by Ocean Conservancy that analyzed ICC data.

More than 30 countries—including India, Chile, Rwanda, and Canada—have put in place nationwide bans on some of the single-use plastic items. In the US, local municipalities, at least 13 states, and Washington have banned some of the products as well, according to the report.