Biden administration to ban federal government from using plastic cutlery to combat climate change

The Biden administration has announced a plan to combat plastic pollution, with a special focus on “phasing out” single-use plastics — such as kitchen cutlery, cups and straws — across federal departments.

President Biden announced an executive order in July to address the “climate crisis” that will require a “full response” from every federal agency.

“The President has committed to ambitious action… to end plastic pollution and calls on the international community to follow his lead to reduce the global production and consumption of new plastics,” the White House said.

As part of the plan, the White House announced a phase-out of single-use plastics, which includes “plastic and polystyrene food and beverage containers, bottles, straws, cups, cutlery, and single-use plastic bags.”

“(The) Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a new goal to phase out federal procurement of single-use plastics from foodservice operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035,” the White House said. “Meeting the new goal … will continue to fulfill the agency’s commitments under the (previous) Executive Order.”

Biden’s previous executive order aimed to restrict the sale of single-use plastic products on public properties.

Some GOP lawmakers responded to the initiative by criticizing the Biden administration for its “ridiculous” and “absurd” priorities.

“The world is burning and he’s worried about plastic forks,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-N.D., told the Daily Mail.

“It’s more news and ridicule and a direct shot at the entire industry,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. “Obviously, that’s not where everyone is. It’s going to increase costs for a lot of people, so it just seems irrelevant to the deficit issue.”

Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said he predicted it would affect “government jobs” and “military bases.”

He proposed that instead of limiting plastic use, we should limit the federal giant.

“They should shrink government if they want it to be a smaller consumer. The reason it’s the largest consumer is because it employs so many people and does so many things it was probably never meant to do,” he said.

The Biden administration added that in “national security” cases, some agencies could have parts of their activities exempted from the executive order.

“The head of an agency may exempt specific agency activities and related personnel, resources, and facilities from the provisions of this order if doing so is in the interest of national security, to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure, or as necessary to protect covert law enforcement operations from unauthorized disclosure,” the White House said.