ADVOCACY UPDATE

Join us, online!

Thursday May 21, Noon - 1p.m.

Monthly Webinar

John Weber, Oceana, will cover how Skip the Stuff policies have been working in New Jersey municipalities, how New Jersey passed the strongest Skip the Stuff Act law yet, and why it is needed in Delaware (HB111). Following Delaware's passage of HB51 in 2023, banning the use of Expanded Polystyrene Foam by dining establishments (and making plastic straws by request only), SB 130 seeks to ban the retail sales of EPS Foam. Oceana has made EPS Foam bans one of its highest priorities. John and Dee Durham (Plastic Free Delaware) will then lead a discussion on how you can play a role in securing passage of HB111 and SB130.

John is a Senior Field Representative for Oceana, and has been working to protect the ocean environment for more than three decades, first as a volunteer with the Surfrider Foundation, and then as their first employee on the East Coast, a job he held for 18 years.

As a result, John has extensive experience fighting plastic pollution and working to stop offshore oil drilling. He has fought for beach access and against LNG facilities and other fossil fuel projects. John was instrumental in many plastic bag and balloon-release bans in NJ. He was appointed by NJ Governor Phil Murphy to sit on the NJ Plastics Advisory Council and serves on the council to this day.

John has also worked for the NJ Environmental Federation (NJ chapter of Clean Water Action) and for NJ Citizen Action.

Since 2023, John has continued his work fighting plastic pollution and the expansion of offshore oil drilling with Oceana. He has also added work on fisheries and protecting marine mammals as he expands Oceana’s footprint into New Jersey and continues their work in Delaware.

As a lifelong surfer, John has been playing in the ocean for as long as he can remember. He moved to the beach full time in 1992 and lives in Bradley Beach, NJ today with his wife and two teenaged children. There, John has served on his town’s Planning Board, Environmental Commission, and he was an elected official in Bradley Beach from 2017 to 2026.
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Upcoming meetings and topics can be found on our calendar.

Past session recordings are on our YouTube channel!

Substitute 2 for HB 111, aka the Skip the Stuff Act

Your action is needed to move this bill forward!  Take action by emailing the members of the House who are next up to vote on HB 111 (HS2).

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO REDUCING THE AUTOMATIC PROVISION OF SINGLE-USE EATING UTENSILS, CONDIMENT PACKETS, AND OTHER ITEMS.
House Bill 111 would prohibit food establishments from providing any single-use food service items, whether plastic or not, unless specifically requested by a customer. This Substitute also exempts nonprofit organizations and schools from the definition of food establishment for the purposes of the bill, and adds civil fines for third and subsequent violations of Chapter 30Q of Title 16. These penalties take effect 2 years after enactment to allow time for businesses to become educated about the requirements of the law, while the remainder of the Act takes effect on January 1, 2026. 

• The United States discards more than 40 billion “disposable” “single-use” utensils a year. Laid end to end, they could wrap around the globe 139 times.
• In the U.S., 561 billion disposable food service items are used every year, resulting in 4.9 million tons of waste, a direct factor in climate change (oil and natural gas extraction , refining and transportation of unnecessary STUFF that is – at best – used for a few minutes – and goes directly to the landfill. 
• Each year, billions of single-use plastics and paper accessories – utensils, straws, napkins, and  condiments – are given to customers who order meals for take-out or delivery and don’t need them.  Most take-out and delivery meals go to homes and offices already stocked with these items.
• Since 2020 online food ordering has increased 300% faster than dine-in, exacerbating the plastic pollution and waste concerns
• The vast majority of single-use take-out items and packaging cannot be recycled due to shape, composition, or food contamination. Plastic utensils and such never decompose and instead breaks into microplastics which enter our own food chain.
• Plastic particles are now proven to be found in our bloodstreams, breast milk, hearts, and brains, and is linked to cancers, insulin resistance, endocrine disruption, decreased sex hormones, and other negative consequences to the human reproductive system.
• Even if Delaware had commercial scale composting (which it doesn’t), composting facilities do not want bioplastics, and many don’t accept compostable foodware because of the contamination they cause - both in terms of chemicals like PFAS but also because of confusion around what is acceptable.
• Although compostable and bioplastic packaging and serviceware are touted as being environmentally friendly, they tend to have even greater environmental impacts than their conventional plastic counterparts and Delaware has no commercial scale composting options. 
• Consumption of single-use plastics increased by 250-300 % since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a thirty percent increase in waste which is attributed to personal protective equipment (PPE), packaging, and disposable foodware.
• Number of Accessories Consumed per Year:

1. Utensils: The United States uses more than 36 billion disposable plastic utensils a year. Laid end to end, they could wrap around the globe 139 times.
2. Straws: Americans use as much as 142 billion straws each year.
3. Chopsticks: made in China result in cutting down 4 million trees a year (45% from cottonwood, birch, and spruce, and the rest bamboo).5 Eliminating forests, our natural carbon sink and providers of habitat and clean air, makes no sense during a climate crisis.
4. Napkins: come from trees, and require significant water to produce. As an example, if 50% of the U.S. population (150M) used 3 paper napkins a day, that would total 450,000,000 napkins for 1 day – which would require 31,500,000 gallons of water to manufacture.

• Many online ordering apps already have a toggle switch for plastic ware, but they are not always defaulted to Opt Out, and restaurants do not always adhere to the customer’s request to Opt Out.  If voluntary action by restaurants was the solution, it should already be happening, which it is not.  With a statewide approach, all restaurants will be on the same page and customers will quickly become educated to the choice to Opt In or Out
• Skip the Stuff policy not only helps the environment, but also saves restaurants money!
• Many other jurisdictions have already passed Skip the Stuff legislation including local governments: New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and more than 17 local governments so far in New Jersey; and states:  California, Washington, and Oregon.  New Jersey has statewide legislation in process.
• 9 million people (and additional visitors!) in New York City - the takeout capital of the world – have successfully adopted/navigated a Skip the Stuff policy  to reduce the kitchen drawer full of old takeout forks, spoons and long-forgotten condiment packets which ultimately end up in the landfill.  This new law will move us closer to cutting down on our plastic waste while making this a cleaner, greener state.  The ”Skip the Stuff” law doesn’t mean these items will be gone forever – Delaware restaurant goers will still be able to request they be included when first placing their orders.
• "    "      ditto D.C.
• Economic Impacts: Restaurants spend $19 billion purchasing disposable foodware items every year.  Local governments in the U.S. spend $1 billion managing waste and cleaning litter.  
• Skip the Stuff is a Win-Win-Win Policy:  Businesses save money on inventory, labor and waste costs: Customers reduce waste and unwanted clutter. Environment wins with less production of single-use items.