Dear EPA,

As a federal government agency, the agency should be more responsible to protect human health and the environment. Creating new landfill facilities that could be safer for the environment is an effort to be applauded, but the agency should create new guidelines and statewide regulations for wastes that go into landfills.

There are only 11 states that require mandatory recycling out of the 50 states. 91 percent of plastic made in the U.S. in 2015 were not recycled. 76 percent of plastic made landed in landfills or in our environment. More effective regulations for recycling plastics are needed to reduce toxic wastes from landfills and to save our land and environment. The agency should step up to make more states participate in mandatory recycling to help reduce the problems caused by landfills than enhancing landfills. Most people don’t even know where the trash we throw away without recycling lands in. By advertising and showing pictures of landfills and the environment affected by not recycling can be an effective way to make people be more involved to recycle. The United States is considered to be the world leader and a model for other countries but falls behind significantly in recycling plastic than other countries like Europe and China. How can we call America the leader of the world when we can’t even recycle a quarter of plastics?

EPA should encourage states to implement taxes on shopping bags and disposable cups at fast food chains and cafes. Implementing taxes on plastic shopping bags would encourage shoppers to use reusable bags to reduce enormous amount of plastic bags that are usually thrown away after one or two uses. Not only would using reusable shopping bags reduce plastic waste, but it would also help maintain the cost people have to pay for recycling. Millions of cups are thrown away daily in fast food chains and cafes. Using reusable cups and containers could reduce plastic products from being thrown away. After China banned the import of foreign waste in 2018, most of the plastics have been going to landfills that could have been recycled.

Meanwhile, the EPA should create a policy to separate recyclable products rather than putting them into one recycling bin. Plastic, paper, glass, and metal are being put into landfills because they can’t be separated and contaminated in our blue recycling bins. There should be a separate recycling bin for plastic, paper, glass, and metal to help reduce products that go to landfills. Also, the EPA should inform people the correct method to recycle. The agency should spread facts about how most of the plastic that are placed in the recycling bin goes to the landfill. The only plastic materials that can be recycled have a recycling symbol on the bottom of the container, and it must be clean, dry, and empty. Facts about how plastic bags should not be thrown away in the recycling bin should be more widespread. Plastic bags can be recycled in big grocery chains or at a local recycling center. Informing people how to correctly recycle will increase the efficiency of products actually getting recycled without ending up in landfills.

-Tae Ho Shin