Let\u27s Get Serious About It: Plastic-Free Campus Initiative

On February 23, 2022, the UN agreed to start negotiating a world-first global treaty on plastic waste--since nearly 200 nations unanimously agreed to move toward a legally binding plastics treaty by 2024. In 2019 the UN Environmental Programme report highlighted that our world is drowning in plastic. As with the climate change crisis (to which plastics production and disposal are also linked), the data resoundingly illustrate the imminent systemic threat that disposable plastics pose to the world\u27s seas, freshwater sources, soils, food supply, air, and species. Nevertheless, plastics production is predicted to rise dramatically over the next 20 years, with yet more plastic added to the 6.5 billion tons of non-biodegradable plastic already amassed throughout the environment. Rather than wait for top-down measures (which are agonizingly slow in coming), the Plastic-Free Campus Initiative at ERAU, via the university\u27s Honors Program, has organized to work toward a campus-wide end to procurement and distribution of single-use plastics. If we can\u27t control the world, can we at least curtail the problem right here, on our own rather small campus? What are the obstacles? Solutions? Members of the organization will discuss the issues and outline strategies for direct action