Single-use plastic pollution is growing exponentially across the world, including here in South Carolina. By 2040, we’ll be emitting 36 million tons of plastic into our oceans every year. Although South Carolina is a coastal state with strong bipartisan support for protecting our wild places, we’re failing to solve this problem.
South Carolina ranks 46th in our overall recycling rate (8%) and plastic recycling rate (4%). Our communities are losing access to recycling. We import other states’ trash to our landfills based purely on profit for waste haulers. Businesses have few incentives to transition away from problematic single-use plastic in packaging and food service. If you don’t believe we have a problem, go inshore fishing in the Lowcountry, where the coastal estuaries have become our pollution filtration system.
This doesn’t have to be our story. Sustainability and conservation are two sides of the same coin, and we need our elected leaders to understand that. This should be the most bipartisan issue ever: Can we all agree that we don’t want to pollute our beautiful state, and that it won’t magically get better without policies, infrastructure and incentives?
I am the president of Atlantic Packaging, the largest privately owned industrial packaging company in North America. We have deep roots in the region, and I want our organization and the supply chain we support to help fix this problem. But we cannot do it alone. We need help from federal, state and local governments coordinating together toward a common goal. We have all created this mess, and it’s our responsibility to fix it.
Here are some commonsense policies that have worked in other states and countries:
• Deposit return systems. A statewide “bottle bill” establishing recycling refunds for beverage containers would allow consumers to return bottles to stores for a small refund. Ten states have bottle bills, and their recycling rates are double or triple that of other states. Bottle bills provide economic incentive to collect waste and are shown to massively reduce litter. They also create clean waste streams to make high-quality recycled content that we can add back into packaging products.
• Extended producer responsibility for packaging. Packaging EPR laws have already passed in four states, and Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Connecticut are considering them. They incentivize companies to transition to sustainable packaging while creating funding for upgraded recycling. Historically, companies aren’t responsible for how their products’ packaging is managed after the sale. Consumer tax dollars end up covering the costs to recycle, throw away or clean up the litter we’ve made. Under an extended producer responsibility model, brands are financially responsible for the disposal costs of the packaging they sell to consumers, with higher costs assigned to difficult-to-recycle materials.
This can be the catalyst to ditch single-use plastic products such as bubble wrap, plastic foam, air pillows and plastic bags and transition to alternatives made from paper, hemp and other natural fibers.
We recycle paper fiber quite well in South Carolina. It’s curbside recyclable, and if it leaks into the environment, it degrades in eight to 12 weeks. We have the packaging technology to replace a huge percentage of single-use plastic products, and this gives the additional financial incentive to make it happen quickly.
• Upgraded recycling. Our single-stream recycling program sends recyclables to facilities where materials are sorted, baled and sold to manufacturers to turn into new products. Many material recovery facilities use dated machinery and manual labor. The more efficient our MRFs are, the more effective and profitable recycling can be. S.C. facilities will become more efficient if we use available robotics technology to sort materials. S.C. legislators should prioritize bringing best-in-class technology to the state, ideally using fees collected from extended producer responsibility.
• Business tax incentives for recycling infrastructure. The private sector has a responsibility to keep the materials we sell in circulation and prevent them from becoming pollution or waste. The more we can use waste as a resource for new products, the less we must rely on natural resources such as forests, fossil fuels and precious metals. Creating tax incentives for businesses to invest in recycling infrastructure will help spur a circular economy. High-tech, sophisticated companies that we want to attract to South Carolina are evaluating regions to invest in based on sustainability. We have no better business recruitment tool than making these investments.
We’re at a critical juncture. We must acknowledge humans are having a significant impact on our natural environment. We are nature, not something separate. Action stems from recognizing that fact, from changing our ways and rectifying mistakes to creating new systems that honor all life. Fortunately, we can take bipartisan action to end pollution and support economic development, creating a better state and world for all.
Wes Carter is president of Atlantic Packaging and a member of The Conservation Alliance Board of Directors and Lowcountry Land Trust board.