Groups urge NPS to ban sales of plastic water bottles
By Jacob Wallace | 6/23/21 | Greenwire E&E News
Advocacy groups are urging the Biden administration to revive a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles at national parks.
The coalition — which includes Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), GreenLatinos and Beyond Plastics — filed a petition yesterday urging the National Parks Service to immediately ban the sale of plastic water bottles and reduce plastic waste by 75% by 2026.
"President Biden has declared that combating climate change and addressing environmental justice should be a government-wide priority," Mark Magaña, the founding president and CEO of GreenLatinos, said in a statement.
"If the federal government hopes to go 'green,' a realistic first step and one of the most important places to start is with our national parks," Magaña said.
The move would effectively reinstate a 2011 goal set by President Obama that called for 75% of national parks to stop selling bottled water by 2016. The service fell short of that goal, and President Trump rescinded the directive in 2017 (Greenwire, Aug. 17, 2017).
Prior to the reversal, 23 parks had instituted a plastic bottle ban, including Grand Canyon and Zion.
The groups argue Obama's goal should have been mandatory. They are urging President Biden to make that a mandate, alongside requiring parks to make annual disclosure of their waste streams.
"The plastics industry has been dictating park policies for too long," PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said. "The conservation mandate for national parks should extend through all their operations, including their concessions."
The bottlers trade group, the International Bottled Water Association, didn't respond to a request for comment.