The quantity of plastic waste in the world continues to grow, inaugurating an increasing crisis in environmental, economic and public health that affects everyone and everything on the planet.
A 2022 report of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Projects that humans produce around 460 million tonnes of plastic each year. Without immediate action, this amount should triple by 2060.
On Thursday July 24, environmental experts met for Turn the tide on plastic waste: a Nowsweek Live event hosted by Newsweek Environment and durability publisher Jeff Young. During the one -hour virtual event, the panelists discussed the state of the problem of plastics and how the world community is gathering to help resolve it.
The panelists included Steve Alexander, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR); Dr. Douglas McCauley, professor at University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara and auxiliary professor at UC Berkeley; And Erin Simon, Vice-President and Plastic Waste and Business Manager at World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
This panel occurs for weeks before the United Nations met in the hope of finalizing a historical treaty that would address The complete life cycle of plastic, production and design to collection, elimination and recycling. The discussions started three years ago and the last series of talks in December ended in an impasse without treaty.
McCauley said that the scale of the plastics problem with which the global community faces is “immense”, which makes the opportunity to resolve it with new “really exciting” negotiations.
As a marine biologist, he underlined the real negative impacts of plastic pollution. There is a threat to biodiversity and habitats of marine life, and an impact on human health with the rise of microplastics in our diet and our water supply. In terms of climate change, McCauley said that without solution, greenhouse gas emissions in continuous plastic production would increase by 37%.
“It’s serious enough for us, serious enough for our planet, and the problem only grows,” he said. “Without intervention, without solid treaty, business as usual will lead us to a 2050 where we double the amount of plastic pollution on our planet.”
So what is the solution?
Erin Simon was present during the previous cycles of the United Nations negotiations and is optimistic that the next meeting will give positive and impactful results.
She said that although there is “no miracle solution” for the problem of plastic waste, the possibility of a global collective agreement has the potential to accelerate the capacity of humanity to solve it.
Although the final project of the treaty is still underway, Simon said that the 193 countries were aligned with a few measures. This includes the release of “problematic” materials from production, the design of more sustainable plastic, the financing of the transition to a recycling infrastructure and ensure that these agreements can be reinforced over time.
“During this next session, we hope that we define the sliding path for all those in the right direction,” she said. “We hope we find means to build more bridges than we seemed to have burned during the last negotiation sessions.”
At APR, Steve Alexander said that the organization had design and test guides for plastic packaging and recycling which are referenced in the world. Although these directives, and many others linked to sustainability and recycling, are useful, they are also voluntary. He said that the United Nations Treaty must have a certain level of normalization.
Having a global standard will allow countries to work together along the plastic waste chain to promote a more circular reuse and recycling system at each stage of life for plastics.
Simon agrees with this point, noting that the policies of companies, states or individual countries are not sufficient to solve the overall problem.
“This is why we have the process to develop global agreements, because these present themselves when the countries realize that they cannot solve a problem by themselves, that it must be something that is coordinated,” she said. “This will not solve for everything, but he has the capacity to create this coordination [and] standardization.”
In the three RS of sustainability, the reduction occurs before reuse and recycling. Panelists have agreed that the first step in reducing waste is to reduce the production of new or virgin plastics.
Alexander said that the use of recycled materials instead of virgin materials reduces energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by around 80%.
He added that political decision -makers and other stakeholders say they would love to use more recycled equipment, but the price is too high.
“When you take equipment and add to it, there is a cost,” he said. “And generally, recycling costs more money than Virgin. This is the reason or the excuse that is used a lot to explain why we do not have a market for recycled equipment.”
But McCauley notes that the cheaper initial cost of the production of virgin plastic is “deceptive” because the countries will have to support Environmental and public health costs of increasing plastic waste.
By associating incentives, such as the threat of high costs for non -recyclable plastics, with investments in recycling and waste management, explained panelists, countries can stimulate employment growth and economic activity while carrying out substantial environmental advantages.
For example, Maryland and Washington recently joined California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon to adopt prolonged liability policies (EPR) that hold plastic producers responsible for processing the management of end -of -life plastics.
“There is just money on the table for us via EPR systems because it creates a more precious product, more jobs, it creates more domestic production and for companies, it helps them to have clear guidelines on how they can produce, where they design, and where it should go so that they can recover and use it again,” said Simon.
Looking towards the next series of talks in the UN Treaty in Geneva, Switzerland, next month, the panelists were global and determined to obtain a result that will have a real impact.
“I am, by construction, an optimist,” said McCauley. “I think that the world has the memo according to which it is a big problem. I will underline again, that it is a unique opportunity for us to come together and to solve this problem. It therefore makes me want to progress as far as possible with this international solution.”
