FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Colleen Teubner cteubner@peer.org 202-464-2293

New Scorecard Rates National Parks on Plastics

National Park Service Should Accelerate Plan to Eliminate Plastics

Washington, DC — Many units of the National Park Service (NPS) are making progress in reducing and eliminating plastics and improving sustainability practices, according to a sustainability and plastics scorecard released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The score card ranks 25 National Parks based on a review of concessionaire contracts, sustainability plans, and waste audits that PEER obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

In June 2023, NPS published its Plastics Elimination and Reduction Plan, which sets a goal of achieving 100 percent elimination of single use plastics by 2032. Additionally, the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act provides a target of diverting 50 percent of all non-hazardous solid waste, including construction demolition, food and other waste by 2025 and 75 percent by 2030.

Some of the noteworthy achievements by individual park units include:

• In Grand Canyon National Park, there are 35 water bottle refilling stations provided by concessionaires and NPS, and they only sell reusable water bottles made of aluminum or steel. They do not sell single-use plastic bottles, food wrappers or containers, or bottled water containing less than 1 gallon.
• In Muir Woods National Monument, water may only be sold in reusable or recyclable aluminum bottles and specialty beverages may only be sold in aluminum cans or compostable cardboard containers. Plastic bottles and containers are prohibited, and the concessionaire provides a water bottle filling station.
• In Golden Gate National Recreation Area, water bottle refilling stations will be provided on vessels and the San Francisco embarkation site, and water bottles must be certified compostable.

“Reducing plastic pollution is one of the most important environmental issues of our time,” says Colleen Teubner, Litigation and Policy Attorney at PEER. “This scorecard identifies several parks that have exemplary plans that can serve as models for other parks.”

PEER selected parks that had a significant amount of concession activity, according to the NPS Concession Program website.  Concessions activity is where the largest amount of environmental sustainability efforts can be found and with the greatest diversity of efforts.

PEER encountered a number of problems in developing the score card, including not receiving full production from all regions and parks. In addition, scores were based on the information received and the timeframe of the documents was limited to January 2015 to September 2023. Changes to park policies may have been made since September 2023.

“While progress is being made, there is no reason why the National Park Service needs seven more years to eliminate single use plastics,” adds Teubner. “The extremely slow implementation schedule offers ample opportunities for a big, distracted bureaucracy to place this effort on a backburner and then eventually to abandon it altogether.”

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View the Scorecard and the accompanying report

Read PEER analysis of NPS plan’s shortcomings

Compare Interior agency plastic reduction plans

View languishing national park bottle-ban rule-making petition