There are many ways single-use plastic finds its way into your day. What is the impact? What can be done?
It Follows Us Home
A trip to the store will leave you with items sold in single-use plastic packaging, plus many retailers provide a plastic bag to carry your purchase home.
Recycling offers us options for some of the single-use plastics we bring home, but many items cannot be recycled. Recycling is not effective to keep enough plastic from ending up in landfills and oceans.
Can we reduce the need to recycle in the first place? How can we avoid dealing with plastics we never chose to bring home?
It Takes Over Our Space
Delicate items and small parts are often wrapped in single-use plastic. People may not realize that they have encountered single-use plastic in these instances.
Often when considering the harms of single-use plastics and possible solutions, we think of the types of items we use on a regular basis. Other plastics that we don’t use as directly as bottles or bags lack dedicated processes for disposal. We may overlook that the small bags and large foam blocks we receive inside things like shipped purchases are single-use plastic too.
Forgetting these kinds of plastics limits our perception of the amount of plastics we use and discard.
It Finds Us Wherever We Go
Some plastics find us when we are simply enjoying a beautiful day out with family and friends.
You are often handed single-use plastic items even when you are not shopping. Many plastics are encountered as we try to create special memories or take in a beautiful day outside.
We may think of outdoor places as far removed from the use of plastic but plastic items find their way into these spaces with and without us bringing them. Plastic left loose in natural habitats is unsightly, harms animals and the natural environment, and finds a way into our own food.
Learn and Take Action
If you or members in your community have concerns about the impact of single-use plastics, here are some available resources.
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Take the “No plastic, please!” pledge
Pledge to say no to eight of the most common kinds of single-use plastic: bags, cups, bottles, straws, cutlery, take-out containers, stirrers, and styrofoam.
No Plastic Please,
Humane Action PittsburghAct
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Make a single-use plastic free kit
Learn how to assemble your own “SUP-free kit” for you and your family so you can say “No plastic, please” when out and about.
No Plastic Please,
Humane Action PittsburghAct
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Sustainable Pittsburgh Recognition Programs
Sustainable Pittsburgh’s recognition programs provide a step-by-step process to track and measure sustainability progress. These voluntary programs present a framework that organizations and communities can use to drive measurable impact.
Sustainable Pittsburgh
Act
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Volunteer and become part of the solution!
Sign up now to help clean up litter, illegal dumping, or stormwater drains in your community.
Allegheny CleanWays
Act
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Wildlife Over Waste
Learn more about how we can reduce single-use plastic waste through policymaking and take action.
PennEnvironment
Act
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City of Pittsburgh Zero Waste
The City has a zero waste by 2030 target. Council also recently passed a plastic bag ban to go into effect in 2023. The City is distributing blue recycling bins to every household serviced by the City to reduce plastic and improve recycling
City of Pittsburgh
Act
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Pennsylvania Resources Council Email List
The best way to stay up to date with everything PRC is working on is through their quarterly e-blast.
Pennsylvania Resources Council
Learn
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Recommendations For Local Government to Improve Regional Recycling
Local government officials are working collaboratively through CONNECT’s Environmental and Economic Development Working Group to co-create local solutions. Read these in the Regional Recycling Report and join our active Working Group.
The Congress of Neighboring Communities (CONNECT)
Learn
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Volunteer to help shred single-use plastic
Reimagined Recycling is giving plastic waste a new life. We are collecting #5 plastics, shredding them in Pittsburgh, and recrafting them into beautiful and functional non-single use items.
Reimagined Recycling
Act
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Find Answers to Your Recycling Questions
This website provides information about how to responsibly dispose of your items. Got questions about what to do with your stuff to give it the best chance of being recycled? We’ve got answers.
Recycle This Pittsburgh
Learn
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Plastics Reduction: A Resource Guide
Phipps Conservatory and Monterey Bay Aquarium produced this plastics reduction resource guide and video webinar for institutions and individuals, demonstrating the value of top-down and bottom-up approaches to reduction.
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Learn
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Zero Waste Kit Rental
Make your party, shower, small event plastic FREE!
Pennsylvania Resources Council
Learn
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Reimagine Takeout
Consumers can find businesses that are composting and education on what to do with their compostable items once they have them in hand.
No Plastic Please,
Humane Action PittsburghLearn
Possible Solutions
Effective, sound policy can help solve the problems single-use plastics create, along with a deliberate approach to rethinking how our products are designed and manufactured, with their end of life in mind.
The Policy Working Group of the Plastics Collaborative produced this set of recommendations for how communities in Southwestern Pennsylvania can reduce the impacts of single-use plastics.
How can we move from a “take, make, waste” system to one where the product life cycle is circular – where the products are reusable, recyclable, or compostable?