Government must lead on plastic pollution

From the 1950s to the ’60s, several smog incidents blanketed cities across the U.S. in thick clouds of toxic pollutants. The air in Los Angeles was so bad in 1954 that more than 1,500 automobile accidents happened in one day.

Imagine if during this period, some argued that the only solution was for polluters to voluntarily stop spewing noxious gases. The U.S. government didn’t trust polluters to police themselves. That’s why we passed legislation governing air quality standards and created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 to enforce them.

The same goes for plastic. Plastic pollution in our oceans may be less visible, but it is no less of a threat to the health of our environment and health.

There are 5 trillion pieces of plastic floating in our oceans right now; by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight. Those pieces end up in the stomachs of sea birds, whales and other marine life, eventually killing them and often ending up on dinner plates.

A report from The Guardian last year revealed that 94 percent of tap water samples contained unusually high levels of plastic fibers.

The scale of this crisis requires government action. I’ve introduced legislation in New York City to ban plastic straws, joining other cities such as Seattle, San Francisco and London.

While private companies like Starbucks and American Airlines have pledged to ditch plastic straws, these efforts represent a drop in the bucket of overall straw usage. We know that current recycling methods will not suffice: Only 9 percent of all plastics are recycled. Leaving it up to individual corporations is far too risky; we must take action now to compel a large-scale change in behavior.

Government has taken on big environmental challenges before, and it can do so again. Today, we take smog-free cities for granted. Fifty years from now, we should be able to say the same of plastic-free oceans.

Rafael Espinal is a New York City Council member from Brooklyn.