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United States Not Big Bad Plastics Polluter

William Balgord
USA
2022
Cornwall Alliance cornwallalliange.org
Scenes like this rarely occur in the United States. Other countries earn this dubious recognition. It is easy to correct.

In a report just released, the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, takes America to task as being “the country” most responsible for polluting its rivers and estuaries with plastic waste that eventually winds up floating on the surface of the oceans. But the basis for the suspect claim needs to be carefully examined.

Neither of these reputable studies supports the NAS in its effort to single out the United States as the primary source of the accumulating plastic debris in the oceans. That dubious distinction is reserved for several Asian nations. In today’s China, India, the Philippines, and South Korea there is little emphasis on controlling the plastic waste escaping into watercourses that discharge into the sea.