The first step in our campaign to stop plastic pollution is to urge Trader Joe’s to switch their packaging to compostable plastics. We appreciate all of the efforts they make toward sustainability and think this is the next logical step to help solve a really big problem. Our plan is to get them to switch and use that as a proof of concept when approaching more conventional retailers and manufacturers.
Plastics last virtually forever and recycling is a fallacy. 8.3 billion tons of plastic were produced over the last 40 years and nearly all of it is with us to this day. Only 9% of that plastic was recycled—most of it only once. Even worse, the world is on track to manufacture four times that amount of plastic within the next 30 years.
Based on a study conducted at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS,) 8.8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year. Plastics are poisoning and maiming marine life, making an eyesore of land and sea, threatening human health, and compromising our food and water supply. In short, our continued use of plastic is threatening our very survival and the survival of our planet.
But we have a choice. We don’t need to continue down this devastating road. The solution is compostable plastics! This material has all the properties of plastic: it is durable, light and provides a puncture resistant protective barrier for food and other products. The consumer can eat or drink the content of the package and then it goes into the organic waste stream and decomposes like organic material.
Take the compostable plastic pledge to show your support for our campaign. Also, please answer a few quick questions below to provide more insight into your shopping preferences that we can pass along to Trader Joe’s.