“In a major step to “green” the operation of national parks, the Biden administration should embrace an immediate ban on park plastic water bottle sales and reducing plastic wastes by 75 percent by 2026, according to a rule-making petition filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), GreenLatinos, and Beyond Plastics. The move would reverse an action by the Trump administration forbidding parks from restricting sales of disposable plastic water bottles.
Plastic bottles are the single biggest component of park waste streams. Parks like Yellowstone estimate that plastic bottles constitute fully half of its entire trash load. Besides the cost of hauling that trash away, the volume of plastic bottles sold in parks consumes large amounts of energy and adds to the carbon footprint of park operations. In addition, parks are contributors to the growing plague of plastic pollution afflicting the planet.”