Nearly ninety percent of U.S. states are failing to adequately address plastic pollution, underscoring evidence of a system failure in a new report by the Ocean Conservancy . The U.S. generates 40 million metric tons of plastic waste every year, or about 287 pounds per person . And every year, that mountain of waste grows by another 11 million tons globally .

America's plastic crisis is financial as much as it is environmental. Managing plastic waste in the U.S. costs over $32 billion annually . Yet only 5 percent of plastic waste is actually recycled here. Without scalable solutions, that burden will only grow, dragging down communities, budgets, and ecosystems alike.

We don't lack awareness of the issue. Instead, we've doubled down on strategies that don't work or don't scale

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