we need swift and bold action at both ends of this problem, making investments in recycling r&d with strong oversight of those programs while also focusing individually as a society and as a government on the urgent need to reduce the amount of plastic waste that we

do indeed generate in the first place. so when it comes to r&d, several federal agencies carry out r&d and standards development programs related to plastics recycling, material substitutes and data gathering. i was astonished to learn there is currently no coordinated effort to facilitate multi-facility -- so dr. keoleian, what do you think the role of the federal government should be in supporting crosscutting r&d and innovation necessary to address our plastic waste reduction and recycling challenges? dr. keoleian: that's an excellent question and clearly there needs to be coordination in terms of this r&d through the federal government so that we can most efficiently use our r&d resources to target the most significant challenges and bottle necks in our system.

and i really recommend -- we developed the first characterization -- you may have seen the diagram of the flow of plastics from production to use products to end of life. some of the areas are incomplete. we don't have data in certain areas to understand what resins are going into what systems. so i first recommend that we really do a more in depth characterization of the different resins, end uses, and end of life management strategies so we understand fully the problem. and then, the solutions really need to be looked at so we can develop infrastructure that's going to deal with long-lived products like buildings and automobiles versus packaging. so i think that we, through a characterization of the streams

can then decide which types of materials we want to go after and what end use products, and so coordination is definitely key. i think starting out with an overall accounting of the problem will facilitate better use of resources. mr. tonko: thank you. and dr. hillmyer, i'm concerned about the climate impact of plastic production which is the use of fossil fuel feed stocks. what environmental benefits, such as lower emissions from production, are associated with your work in developing alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics? dr. hillmyer: thank you for the question. it's pretty clear that turning to renewable resources for plastics will ultimately be the future in the long run, and the research associated with how to efficiently convert those materials from renewable resources like plants that

sequester co-2 is really a high priority. the bottom line is that the ability to convert sugars from plants to chemicals we can then ultimately use in the manufacture of plastics, it requires fundamental research to support new technologies that stem from that. because you're competing with an industry that's very efficient and has many efficiencies associated with the conversion of fossil resources. so we work to try to understand how to use renewable resources, how to convert them efficiently in the molecules that have utility in the polymer and plastics arena. basic research is coming along, but more effort is needed to make it both technologically and economically competitive with petro chemically derived chemicals. mr. tonko: thank you. i say welcome, maria, and thank

you, chair stevens, i yield back. chair stevens: thank you. you are the sweetest friend, mr. tonko. let me recognize my colleague from ohio, who has been a really great collaborator on this work, mr. gonzalez. mr. gonzalez: thank you, madam chair. happy birthday. and thank you to our witnesses for being here today and for your expertise. i agree, congress must get to work on ways to accelerate innovation in plastics and battery recycling, reduce the environmental impact of their consumption and increase domestic resources and supply chains. recycling needs to address the climate challenge, as mr. hillmyer just discussed. we need to spur innovations through r&d and coordination across relevant federal agencies on the work. that's why i was proud to join the chairwoman in introducing the plastics waste reduction and recycling research act.

this congress. and applaud her leadership on this issue. it's also important to recognize the unique role of the department of energy and its national labs in enabling next generation research and advanced recycling. mr. baca, i want to start with you. in your prepared remarks, you describe a.c.c.'s work with d.o.e. and its national labs. so the question is, how is the department of energy's office of science uniquely positioned to conduct research to solve challenges in this space? mr. baca: congressman, thank you so much for that question. let me start off by saying, all in regard to the comments about the climate challenge, first off, plastics overall have a much lower carbon footprint than any other material. they have been critical, as i mentioned in my statement, to vehicles and insulating our homes and some of the work we're doing with the department of energy and our national labs is focusing on that to understand the life cycle of plastic

materials and ensure we understand its impacts on the environment. that work is currently happening. we've been working with a variety of the national laboratories, argon national laboratory, for instance, we worked with the department of energy under the plastics innovation challenge. the key thing is this work is happening right now. we're working with some of the leading scientists in the world to examine and research the best ways to recover, reuse, recycle more of our plastic materials. so i commend the work the committee is doing. our industry is happy to be working on this. there is a critical role for the department of energy. also a critical role for the national labs to ensure we study the best use for plastic recycling. mr. gonzalez: thank you. as a follow-up, is there anything that should be done to facilitate d.o.e.'s work by other stakeholders or other agencies and are there mechanisms that need to promote other public-private partnerships? mr. baca: absolutely. many of us on this meeting today, our organizations

collaborate with the recycling partnership and others to create a circular system here. that public-private partnership is an excellent model in the sense we're able to capture more plastic and collaborate on more solutions. the work being done at the d.o.e. and the national labs, for instance, those findings should further inform the work we're doing. . mr. gonzalez: my final question for you, so there are sometimes some false narratives about advanced recycling. could you discuss how important advanced recycling and

innovative technologies will be to address the climate challenge? .mr. baca: it was a critical component to solving the waste challenge. we are developing at a commercial scale, one of our member companies is building a plastic-to-plastic facility intown that will cost about $250 million. it's critical what advanced recycling does it takes very difficult parts to recycle plastic. think a pouch that is manufactured today to keep your food fresh. that is light. it requires less water to produce. easy to transport from a cashon perspective, but very difficult to recycle from a mechanical perspective. advanced recycling takes those items, breaks them down to their chemical building block, and creates a virgin quality plastic that allows it to go into very demanding applications. food contact, pharmaceutical, medical, advanced recycling will be key as part of that

competitive strategy that the congresswoman from texas -- comprehensive strategy that the congresswoman from texas mentioned. mr. gonzalez: thank you for that. thank you to our witnesses again and to madam chair. i yield back. chair stevens: with that we'll now recognize mr. beyer from the commonwealth of virginia. mr. beyer: thank you, madam chair, very much. i want to thank your mother for doing the hard work 29 years ago and giving birth to you. i want to say that i am very supportive of this act. i do believe that there's better living through chemistry. but i also think the elephant in the room is why not less plastics? we talk about recycling and putting plastics together, but mr. lowenthal has a banning single use plastics bill.

there are now 9 -- 69 countries that banned plastic bags. a dozen have band microbeads including the united states and the u.k. dr. keoleian, are we not missing a big piece of this by thinking about better ways to use less plastics? dr. keoleian: yes. you make a very good point and observation. we really need to look holistically at solving our problems in terms of providing goods and services economically and sustainably. yes, plastics do afford benefits of light weighting and safety, protecting products. but there is -- we do need to look at -- we do a lifecycle assessment, look at the impacts in production, use, and retirement. and evaluate the total energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste. there are definitely

opportunities today where we could substitute materials. use more durable solutions. and reduce the use of plastics. plastics clearly have a critical role in our society, but i think we could be smarter with substitutions and -- because if we just focus on recycling, we could actually increase the proliferation of plastics and actually make recycling more challenging. and the volumes could go up, which means more resources. as you know, we are in a climate crisis. we need a different calculus about how we look at sustainable systems and solutions. i think it's really critical that when we evaluate innovations in recycling, infrastructure we look from a lifecycle lens. and plastics are carbon intensive. there are other materials that are less carbon intensive but

they do offer advantages. you get these tradeoffs that occur. it's important to use a system's approach to address it. mr. beyer: just little things you see on capitol hill, many members will carry around the big 32-ounce or 64 ounce water bottles. which is a huge improvement over buying yet another water bottle a dozen at a time. miss harrison, you have a background in plastics among other things. which scares the dickens out of me. the great pacific gash an patch is twice the size of texas. that's one of overwhelm five major garbage patches in the world. i just read we have up to two million tons of plastics per year in the oceans and rivers. what are we going to do to address this? ms. harrison: i think it gets back to your first question. i agree that recycling will not solve this. recycling is part of a circular

economy, but it is not the solution. we cycle something a reaction. recycling only happens when there is a big enough pile that someone can turn into something new. if we wait for that pile to accumulate in the ocean, we have missed our opportunity to prevent it from happening in the first place. yeah, i started off by studying turtles. a couple years ago i was on a research ship that took corporate executives and my biologist, my lead biologist from college, she joined me, because i said don't you want to join corporate executives in the middle of the ocean to see the plastics up front? and we jumped in the middle of the water. we jumped in the atlantic ocean 50 kilometers east of bermuda and saw the microplastics. we saw mackerel, fishing gear, forks. if we wait for forks to be in the middle we have waited too long. we have to talk about a system solution that takes into

concepts -- that takes r&d concepts and maris them to economic. i love this conversation about cross agency collaboration. we must think about it. from a system point of view so we prevent the problem not just clean up the problem. mr. beyer: thank you very much. i yield back. chair stevens: with that allow me to recognize my friend and colleague, dr. baird, for five minutes of questioning. mr. baird: thank you, madam chair. again happy birthday. ranking member waltz and our witnesses, we appreciate you being here. i appreciate miss harrison mentioning hollywood, indiana, makes outdoor furnitures out of deter gent bottles. then just last week i spoke to the eri, the electronic recyclers international, a company located in my district,

which specializes in electronics recycling. while, yes, this hearing pertains and focuses on the plastics recycling, i believe some of the themes remain the same when we view recycling at a global level. and this is an issue that you mentioned in your testimony, dr. keoleian, the united states exports waste to developing countries. which excludes both plastics and electronics waste. i discussed the national security and the counterfeiting which occurs from exporting electronics waste. but that is but one issue. as such countries also present severe environmental harm by improperly disposing of these materials. that being plastics as well as the electronics. realistically what's happening when such countries import these plastics, and is there anything we can be doing to help in the disposal and make

sure it's handled properly? dr. keoleian: yes, so -- one thing just focusing on electronic waste, i know the g.a.o. did a study and showed that there is a lot of illegal activity of exporting waste, hazardous waste. so one activity that congress could do is strengthen the auditing and crack down more on the illegal activity. because that is posing problems in terms of hazardous waste and how they are managed improperly in developing countries. then we have talked about setting up the infrastructure here so we are not exporting it. i think we need to take responsibility, total producer responsibility in terms of how

our products are managed at end of life. we can't rely on exporting t there is a recognition we also want leadership in setting up the systems to be able to properly manage products like electronics to reduce risk. i think, one, accountability in terms of enforcement of the current regulations that we have on electronics waste that goes a long way. mr. baird: thank you for that. dr. hillmyer, in your testimony you suggest biobase fuels, i'm changing direction, you suggest that biobased products would make for promising materials to use in places, some of the traditional manufacturing materials. so with my background i'm interested in how agriculture might play a role in solving some of these issues and

provide the raw materials for making alternative materials that would function for the same purpose. do you have any comments in that regard? dr. hillmyer: absolutely. there is really -- i spoke about in my testimony biobased products and the idea that you would use annually renewable crops to generate not only new chemicals but incumbent chemicals that could be drop-in replacements for petroleum-based materials is an active and important area of research. one air aa -- one area that i think is important now is the ability to use nonbiomass. so there is no disruption of the food chain. but of course, it turns out it's a lot easier to process things like corn and other

materials that have sugars that are more readily accessible to fermentation processes, for example. that basic research, that fundamental understanding of how to convert those biobased resources into both new chemicals and drop-in replacements is in need of more effort and more research to make these things technologically viable. in the fullness of time using like i said nonnew traive biomass, is a really important goal for the industry. mr. baird: thank you. i see i'm out of time. i yield back, madam chair. chair stevens: perfectly on time. with that the chair's going to recognize dr. bill foster for five minutes of questioning. mr. foster: thank you, madam chair. mr. baca, first off thank you for your shot out to argone national labs, not only because i represent them, but it's a perfect example, the research you cited, of why this committee is committed on a

bipartisan basis to doubling d.o.e.'s budget across the whole mange reigning of missions. it's one small but important part. my question to anyone that wants to try, what do you do with high performance plastics? how do you deal with plastics that have glass fibers for structural strength or color? are there classes of really high performance plastics, high temperature epoxies and so on for which there is not going to be a realistic recycling scenario or -- what fraction of the current poe tngs market is this? should we just focus on the generic plastics and acknowledge there is some classes, hopefully small volume, that are going to be really tough and we should for now give up on them? anyone want to take a stab? >> i don't mind taking a stab.

some aspect of it. i think you have an important point in that high performance materials, for example composite materials, certainly have challenges associated with how to recycle them. dr. hillmyer: the contemporary research in this arena in the thermoset arhine reasona is going on at the center for sustainable polymers is how are you able to reprocess these materials? thermosets are typically viewed as unreprocessable. but current research and dynamic exchange allows for these materials to be reprocessed in ways that were not available before. while recycling, biodegradation, and other aspects of solving this waste dilemma are important i do think reuse and reprocessing of materials could play a role and may very well come along with the composite materials and

fiberglass that's in there. i'll end by saying, yes, these are a smaller portion of our plastics wastedy lema. i do not -- waste dilemma. i do not think we should ignore t there are more pressing issues. the more common plastic packaging. . mr. foster: does anyone -- how do you rebuild the future of this? are we going more and more to solvents type recycling? what are the future technologies? or just do a really good job with chemical separation with robotics. what are the technologies that are going to end up being important in this? .mr. baca: i think some of the work i talked about in regards to recycling is focused on plastic packaging. there is no doubt we can learn from how we scale it across other industries. we as a plasticstry represent a

variety of companies that do a variety of things in this space. one key area our company focused in on is helping create a low-carbon future by lightweighting vehicles and making them more energy efficient. we have outlined a road map that deals with the issue of sirk late in the automotive space. it will require more effort by work on this committee and government agencies. think about that r&d aspect of it because what we are doing right now is we are solving an issue from a carbon perspective. we now need to think about how we make these materials more sustainable and reutilize them over and over and over again. i was speaking to a sustainability fellow, even thinking about their vision a little bit, with the electrification of cars, autonomous vehicles, those parts are valuable. they have high value that could be used again and again. there is no doubt that more work needs to be done. my hope would be that some of the work and the breakthroughs on things like advanced

recycling could extend into some these other applications. mr. foster: i think it's in germany where they have requirements for repsychibility of cars they are manufacturing? is that correct? you are talking about the dream of having cars that are assembled by robots at the factories. at the end of their life they drive back to the factory and the say robots that put them together take them apart and separate them, melt down the plastic parts and cast them into new pieces. that serves as an ultimate end point. the germans i thought were making requirements already on cars. .mr. baca: i don't know off the top of my head. we could get that submitted for the record. i think your point is spot on. if you think of a futuristic world here and the manufacturing of vehicles, that vision you outlined is one i think we wholeheartedly subscribe to. the material is super valuable.

adds tremendous value. it's not waste f we could capture that material, break it down to its building blocks and reuse it again, that's not just good for the environment, it's a sustainable product, it reduces our reliance on natural resources, and will create sirk late -- circlearity. mr. foster: i guess my time is up. yield back. chair stevens: thanks. now the chair will recognize the congressman from michigan, peter meijer, for five minutes of questioning. mr. myer: thank you, madam -- mr. mire: thank you, madam chair. happy birthday. i just wanted to again thank both our ranking member and our chair for hosting this hearing. i think it's an incredibly important topic. one that in west michigan we care deeply about.

we have two land phils in our largest -- lieu landfills in our largest -- two landfills in our largest county. i'm proud to say our county and local officials are looking at ways to turn it into a sustainable business park to recapture the value stream that is being disposed of. i want to also appreciate the ranking member's remarks on the idea of the circular economy and what we can do to close down some of those waste streams. obviously single use plastics is a main one. the plastics that are not getting recycle that are recyclable are also incredibly significant. ever since the 2018 national sword policy by china, we lost one of our most valuable output mechanisms and sorting mechanisms for dealing with that could he mingled but recyclable waste. we also have a very strong plastics industry that supports thousands of jobs.

chemical industry, auto manufacturing, and even in the package of breakfast serials, battle creek in my district, cereal city u.s.a. plastics plays a vital role. one of my questions first for mr. baca, as we are thinking about single use plastics and postible plastics coming onboard, i know we have spoken about some of the difficulties of -- just the contamination that can occur when compostible or biodegradeable plastics are introduced into a recyclable plastic stream. what are the opportunities to be shifting those single use applications into a biodegradeable or compostible alternative? .mr. baca: thank you for that question. i think both of those are part of that all of the above solution that the congresswoman from texas mentioned. i think the key point that i would mention regarding this, this cuts across a variety of comments made today.

innovation is going to be what wins the day on solving this problem. not bans or more regulation. innovation how we deal with composibility. how woo deal with biodegradibility. innovation how we create a circular economy for plastics where we use valuable material over and over again. that is what circularitys what that will create is a low-carbon future that all of us want. it would require us using less natural resources to create these products. to the specific point of your question, i think this goes back to the overarching team what this committee is talking about today. more work is needed. we need to think and leverage the best of what we have. whether it's the department of energy, whether it's our national labs, whether it's the commerce department. all of these agencies play a very critical role in connecting the research spots to ensure science guides the expansion of things like biodegradibility. research guides things like composibility.

and collaboration continues to guide the work around circularity. mr. mire -- mr. mier: it's good to welcome a wince from the great lakes state. i should note your professorship at the university of michigan is named for peter weggy, the son of wes michigan, directed much of his energy and philanthropy into environmental causes. he joined the term economy-ecology. very much a believer of that. care for the environment but doing so which is economically beneficial. i believe conservationism, but also conservatism, are using that lens. how should congress be approaching that lifecycle of plastic materials to have maximum benefit for the economy? dr. hillmyer: we also look at lifecycle costs. one example we did a study --

for the state of oregon and bottled water versus eusable systems. dr. keoleian: and clearly there's -- using tap water and filling a container is going to be much more economical than using a disposable bottle. and the energy savings and the waste is significantly different. we need to be smart and really look -- when we look at solutions we do need to look at the economics. i believe we also need to look at certain regulations and standards because it's not just going to be innovation. i think it's critical that we take an interdisciplinary approach and bring together the economics, policy, technology, and behavior. mr. meijer: thank you. i yield back. chair stevens: great questions. with that the chair is now going to recognize the congresswoman from the ninth

state of north carolina, congresswoman ross. ms. ross: thank you very much, chairwoman stevens. i hope this is a very, very happy birthday for you. i also want to thank our businesses for joining us today on this extremely important issue that aeffects people's everyday lives. in my home state of north carolina where one of the top plastic producers in the country. as of 2019 we were ranked in the top 10 in the country in terms of number of employees in the plastics industry. with over 38,000 employees. we have also played an important role in plastic waste reduction and recycling innovation. in 2009 when i served in the north carolina state legislature, we were facing serious issues with litter and sea turtle deaths along the outer banks, one of the most pristine parks of our state. in response, we passed a law that bans single use plastic

bags in six counties along the outer banks. while this law is generally supported in those communities, it was repealed in 2017. in addition, we have researchers at the north carolina state university in my district who are involved in plastic waste reduction and recycling research. in addition to the company previously mentioned one graduate of n.c. state's college of textiles went on to found a sustainable clothing company that converts plastic bottles into fiber that is spun into yarn, into fabric, and sown into clothing. i focused a lot in my questions about the next generation because we are such a stem focused area of the country. so to all the witnesses i want to ask you how we inspire the

next generation to get involved in stem fields, to be excited about recycling, and not using plastics in the first place. we have seen so much leadership from the next generation about climate issues and about things like recycling. we are teaching kids in schools how can we better encourage them to pursue education and careers like you-all have. >> as a graduate of a north carolina university, i am happy to have this research. my degree was in human ecology and natural resources. ms. harrison: how we put this together. that's what i look for i'm inspiring young people and young diverse people to be involved. when we think of how we engage kids into this space, i think we often think about campaigns. we have all seen those. what we really need is to spark the innovation of our youth and look into the system solution

we keep talking about. we can't just r&d our way out. we can't just look for a singular technology. we have to really think about pivoting from how we respond to the problem to how do we prevent it in the first place? how do we know from the very concept of design whether it's an advanced plastic material like we were talking about or packaging? we know whether it's going to be linear, landfill. or circular. it can become something else. that's what the partnership is doing to have diverse knit this space to bring young minds to think about it holistically. >> i move on to my next question so i can get another one in. if somebody wants to amplify. this is for dr. hill myer. -- dr. hillmyer.

ms. ross: working on chemical recycling technology integrate a sustainable chemistry with your research in order to minimize or neutralize any potential byproducts of the chemical recycling dr. hillmyer: we work hard on this advanced recycling in the subset of chemical recycling and trying to understand the fundamentals of how you can take established plastics and one that is we design on purpose to be efficiently chemically recycled. and we commented on -- about use of solvent in green chemistry ways that don't require a solvent that require things like maybe temperature or light that allow you to turn plastics that are useful in their everyday application officially back to the molecules from which they came. if we can do that those new

molecules can generate virgin plastic that has the same benefit. ms. ross: thank you. i yield back. chair stevens:le with that will we are going to recognize dr. connor lamb, congressman from the nice state of pennsylvania for five minutes of questioning. mr. lamb: thank you, madam chair. yes, we are nice. so nice in fact that on behalf of the whole state we would like to wish you a happy birthday today as well. to our witnesses thank you for hanging on this long. dr. hillmyer, i wanted to pick up where i think you were leaving off which is, of course our jurisdiction on this committee really is to try to move forward the nation's research agenda and help answer kind of unanswered questions, particularly ones of a longer term nature that individual businesses might -- would you mind just summarizing or commenting on the state of

knowledge about where we are going in composting and the break down of so-called biodegradeable recyclables and plastics and maybe give me a little bit more specific insight into if there are two or three big questions that we can really help answer, say, in the next decade, what are they? dr. hillmyer: this is an area i'm passionate about and interested in. and i'll reiterate what i said earlier. this biodegradation. over what time frame, under what conditions? and i think this is where the basic research plays a key role. understand exactly what happens. let's say an industrial compost at high temperature and high humidity as opposed to maybe backyard compost or in the environment. and how to differentiate between the chemistries and fundamental processes that go on in those different environments so you can understand and predict the lifetimes of these materials in

the environment. the second piece that's important, i think, is what do they break down to? and how do we understand we are not just generating, for example, smaller shards of plastic that are recalcitrant. so following it all the way through the breakdown process and understanding both the physical phenomena anti-chemical phenomena are critically important -- and the chemical phenomena are critically important. we have research in the center trying to understand that. how do microorganisms break down what ultimately results from the high drolcies or biodegradation of composible plastics? i view this again as a piece of the solution to plastic waste. but it will come with infrastructure and clear education and understanding of what is meant by compostable and how the process is actually -- processes actually take place. i think this is a contemporary area of research. more research is needed to understand the design factors.

what you might build into the plastic to help it break down in efishen ways. i love the idea of a systems approach where its design of molecules, evaluate performance, end of life scenarios that allow a complete lifecycle to be understood at a very fundamental level. >> i thank the chairwoman will help us advance us toward that goal. dony of our other witnesses want toance my question in the 1:50 i have remaining? clarifying the specific question that you would like to see us answer in the next decade or so. ms. harrison: i would encourage this committee to, when they think about composting i very often hear people thinking about composting and recycling. because recycling seems hard. when we pivot to what else, we have to ask ourselves is the list for making plastics

composible even longer. currently 4% of u.s. population have access to that composing. that's less than those who have access to traditional revikling. i want to make sure we are not pivoting to something because the current problem seems hard. but how do we make sure we have a good solution. gloip i would just add we think of composting as very positive. -- dr. keoleian: i would just add we think of composting as very positive. i put the compose in my gharden, soil amendment. what we are talking about slitter. avoiding the litter. it's a lost resource. this is plastic that has embodied energy in it and we are just dissipating it into the virme to deal with the litter problem. -- environment to deal with the litter problem. i think we have to look at critically what we want to make composible.

i think -- compostible. it's back to holistic solutions. mr. lamb: i appreciate. if we can get the chairwoman's bill passed it will certainly move us down the road to answering some of that. appreciate your presence and insights. madam chairwoman, i yield back. chair stevens: thank you. what a nice note to begin to close the hearing out on. because it's true we've got a tremendous piece of legislation . this hearing was the kickoff for this legislative session to really make sure that we are on the right track and hearing from stakeholders from across the spectrum with mr. baca being from the american chemistry council. if you heard in his testimony and i'll repeat it again is very dedicated to the -- all hands on deck approach. and also bringing in the expertise that we need to hear

from to keefe harrison, has her finger on the pulse of what's going on across the country. and dr. marc hillmyer, i feel like i could, along with dr. keoleian, your wealth of knowledge and dedication both with keoleian, dr. keoleian at the weggy school as mr. meijer referenced was an american hero and so dedicated to our state of michigan, both sides of the state of michigan. and dr. millhill mire, sometimes people confuse michigan and minnesota, we know you are on the other side of the lake. a couple of other sides of the lake. we can debate who really is the land of many, many lakes. we really are grateful for your dedicated research and your time today. and where we find ourselves in this legislative session is really at -- i think the tipping point of something

tremendous. we called today's hearing, moving from staggering statistics, if you recall hearing me share that just 9% of our recycling -- plastics is recycled. how do we increase that? how do we even begin to think about doubling that? to sustainable systems. the systems component, moving from staggering statistics to sustainable systems is so important because we hear about the individual enthusiasm and the consumer enthusiasm and even as ms. ross was referencing in her questions and what she's seeing in her district in north carolina with individual entrepreneurs and business leaders, but we really do need a systems approach. this also comes as a unique time as the united states is charting a path forward on our broader infrastructure as well. it does look like, as i was filibustering here, a colleague from another -- another colleague from the nice state

of pennsylvania, congresswoman susan wilds, has come in for questions. allow me to pause and recognize her for five minutes of questioning. miss wilds. ms. wild: i'm sorry. i'm juggling three committees this morning. i'll keep it short. i have been listening to as much of this hearing i could because it's a topic of great personal interest to me. what i really just -- i'll just throw this out there to dr. keoleian. a recent study concluded that large amounts of plastic would accumulate in the environment even if we used every currently feasible effort to achieve an 80% reduction in plastic solution by 2040. you and other experts agree that designing materials for

recyclibility will be key to reduction. what steps do we need to take to ensure coordination between product design and options for end of life plastic management? that's going to be my only question because i know it's a big far ranging question. dr. keoleian: one of the things i recommended that we emphasize in terms of the r&d, in terms of the investment there anti-research, is that we have industry participate with the scientists, with government, to look at what kinds of policies can help make innovations more implementable or accelerate the implementation. and also even community partners. we really need to look at co-creation of solutions. i think that will be really artificial intelligence in terms of ensuring that we are

going to coordinate between product design and end of life. we need to bring the o.e.m. that make automobiles in with marc's group and also involve those that are responsible for end of life recycling infrastructure. i think that interdisciplinary approach and co-creation of solutions is important. then the other is we really need to look at europe really helped push reducing the amount of waste in automobiles with their guidelines. it was mentioned about germany. europe's guidelines on automobiles to reduce the amount of residue, the amount of waste. and those kinds of policies can also help accelerate solutions that are technological. so i think that's important as well well.

ms. wild: i have to say, this comes -- hi a personal experience not too long ago where i was on an island in the caribbean. cry me a violin, right? one of the things -- it was a very russ particular island. one of the things that struck me, there are lots of places in the world that have a tremendous amount of trouble moving their trash, quite honestly. because of being ocean locked. i understand those concerns. as a result i have seen little to no effort to recycle. they had trouble getting plain old trash off the island let alone dealing with plastics recycling. it was tragic because here i was in a beautiful place with just an abundance of plastic waste all over the place. i think we are going to have to get to the point where the manufacturers are looking at

that end of life solution. that end of plastic life management where there's some way other than just -- because this is such a global problem. if we don't look at global solutions, we are just never going to solve t -- solve it. thank you all. it's been very helpful. the parts i was able to participate in and listen to. i really enjoyed. thank you. madam chair, i yield back. chair stevens: excellent. congratulations to my colleague for the three hearings and managing to make it in for this one because your voice and viewpoints are very important to us. we are going to bring the hearing to a close. we don't have any more questions. i do want to thank our science committee staff on both sides of the aisle. i'm here in the committee room

and it is absolutely set up expertly with great professionalism. we were able to do this in a hybrid format as we start to kind of come back to the way things were. that's never a light switch as we have been learning in this pandemic. but we were able to achieve the success and goal of this hearing. and, frankly, we are in a nice springboard as i was saying to what's next. we are going to continue to leave the record open for two weeks for additional statements from members or additional questions that members may have of the witnesses. i know we are going to continue to draw down on the expertise of this great panel of witnesses. so at this time the witnesses are going to be virtually excused. they are going to be excused and the hearing is now

adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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