Legislation intended to reduce the use of plastics and boost recycling is seeing mixed results as this year’s legislative session enters its final week.
Democratic lawmakers failed to pass ambitious recycling proposals, but successfully passed a bill that could help reduce the use of single-use plastics.
The Plastics Reduction Bill, championed by freshman Rep. Sharlett Mena, D-Tacoma, is on Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk.
Once signed, the bill requires water bottle filling stations in new buildings, eliminates single-use plastics for personal care products in hotels, and reduces pollution from foam-filled floats and docks.
It faced relatively little opposition in the Legislature. The bill could make “a big dent in our constant and ongoing efforts to reduce plastic pollution in the environment,” Mena said.
A recent poll conducted by Oceana found 92% of Washington voters are concerned about single-use plastic products, and 91% say they are concerned about plastic pollution and its effect on the environment. The vast majority of Washington voters (87%) support local and state policies that reduce single-use plastic.
The bill, extremely popular with youth advocates, Mena said, has also provided an avenue for Washington students to engage with the legislative process.
“It’s something I get a lot of emails about from youth. Anything we can do to engage youth in the process so they can learn that they do have a voice and a place in our government is going to pay dividends well into the future with a healthy democracy and future leaders,” Mena said.
But another bill attempting to better regulate waste in Washington died an early death.
The Washington Recycling and Packaging Act was an ambitious pitch to put some of the cost of recycling on the businesses making the packaging. It didn’t make the first cutoff.
“That was the biggest bill that was considered this session” related to the environment, said Rep. Beth Doglio, D-Olympia. “It’s the first time that the House had contemplated such a significant change to the way that we recycle in the state.”
The bill would’ve helped ensure every household has the same understanding of how to increase their recycling, and expanded recycling services to more than 300,000 households.
Those changes to the system would have been funded by businesses that produce paper and packaging through payments into a producer responsibility organization. And the bill would’ve added incentives for consumers to recycle.
In 2017, King County’s recycling rate was around 52%, according to the state Department of Ecology.
Doglio said she’s excited to revisit the bill next session.
