Author: Chris Voloschuk
This week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas reintroduced legislation that, if enacted, would impose a 20-cent-per-pound fee on the sale of virgin plastic resin used to make single-use plastics. The Rewarding Efforts to Decrease Unrecycled Contaminants in Ecosystems (REDUCE) Act was first introduced by Whitehouse in 2021 with the goal of creating an incentive to recycle plastic and help reduce plastic waste he says “is disrupting coastal economies, overwhelming ecosystems and threatening public health.”