By Juliet Jacob Ochenje
To mark the 2023 World Environmental Day, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, has called for concerted efforts towards breaking reliance on plastics.
He said this will help the world to achieve zero waste and build a truly circular economy.
In a statement posted on its official Twitter handle @AntonioGuterres to mark the World Environment Day, the UN Chief noted over 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced worldwide, with just one third used just once.
According to Guterres, the equivalent of over 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic is dumped into oceans, rivers and lakes daily.
He also noted that microplastics are finding their way into the food and water humans consume, as the air we breathe.
Plastic is made from fossil fuels the more plastic we produce, the more fossil fuel we burn, and the worse we make the climate crisis, the UN chief lamented.
He added that a new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) showed that plastic pollution can be reduced by a staggering 80 per cent by 2040 if humankind acts now to reuse, recycle, and pivot away from plastics.
The statistics for the damage caused by plastics are daunting: more than 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year worldwide, half of which is designed to be used only once. Of that, less than 10 per cent is recycled, according to UN figures.
“We have the solutions but solutions are at hand: including the legally binding agreement that remains on course, following five days of negotiations involving more than 130 nations last week,” Guterres stated.
The UN Chief further said with available science and solutions to tackle the problem, governments, companies and other stakeholders must scale up and speed actions to solve this crisis as an estimated 19-23 million tonnes end up in lakes, rivers and seas annually – approximately the weight of 2,200 Eiffel Towers.
Microplastics – defined as plastic particles up to 5mm in diameter, find their way into everything we consume and breathe. It is estimated that each person on the planet consumes more than 50,000 plastic particles per year –and many more if inhalation is considered.
Discarded or burnt single use plastic harms human health and biodiversity and pollutes every ecosystem from mountain tops to the ocean floor.
(Written with additional information from the UN website; Photo credit: The Balance)
