More than 60 volunteers gather for Earth Day cleanup

This weekend, Environment Washington partnered with the Surfrider Foundation to host a beach cleanup event at Golden Gardens Park in Seattle in honor of Earth Day.  Over 60 volunteers gathered to help pick up litter and learn about policy solutions that will help prevent so much plastic and other waste in the first place.

Collectively, volunteers collected 25.84 pounds of recycling and 71.3 pounds of trash, removing over 97 pounds of waste from Golden Gardens Park! 

Unfortunately, picking up waste is not enough to solve our plastic waste problem. Globally, we produce about 400 million tons of plastic waste every year and that number is only projected to rise. We need to reduce the amount of plastic waste we produce, and set up our recycling systems in Washington to more efficiently capture recyclable materials and move to a circular materials economy rather than a “take-make-waste” linear economy.  In Washington, more than 50% of all consumer packaging and paper products are landfilled or incinerated, wasting an estimated $104 million in valuable materials.

That’s why State Rep. Liz Berry (LD 36) has introduced the Washington Recycling and Packaging Act, which would incentivize companies to reduce wasteful packaging, and improve recycling outcomes in Washington. In her presentation to cleanup participants, she highlighted the benefits of her bill which include expanded recycling access across the state, reduced confusion by creating a statewide list of what can’t and cannot be recycled, and shifting the costs of recycling from residents onto the companies that make decisions about product packaging in the first place. 

Volunteers also heard from Susan Fife Ferris, the Director of Solid Waste Planning & Programs at Seattle Public Utilities, who has firsthand experience with managing the challenges of problematic packaging in city solid waste systems, and is a longtime advocate for establishing producer-funded recycling programs in Washington. 

Celebrate Earth Day by helping create a cleaner, greener planet! Sign our petition in support of making companies financially responsible for the full lifecycle of their products & product packaging, so that we can reduce the amount of plastic waste that enters our parks in the first place.