A Global Plastics Treaty, wouldn’t that be fantastic? An agreement between all nations, in essence to drive down plastic pollution, from extraction to production to final disposal.
Five previous rounds of talks and negotiations could not resolve the impasse to accomplish this in order to limit the rampant damage to our shared planet. Why did they not succeed? Whilst 110 countries agreed, they were stonewalled by a minority of states whose view is coloured by power, money and politics, with scant regard for the greater good.
We hear these facts again and again:
- there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050;
- 1.5 trillion pieces of plastic enter the oceans every year;
- production of plastic is set to triple by 2060 if nothing is done to limit it;
- plastic is in the human body and in the atmosphere we breathe;
- we cannot recycle our way out of the crisis.
Yet these seeds of information fall on seemingly stony ground, perhaps daunted by the scale of the problem the world has created, maybe denying responsibility for our consumption, both individually and collectively, or in the case of the ‘pollutocrats’ (as dubbed by Oxfam), protecting riches and refusing to acknowledge the urgency of the situation.
According to a review in the Lancet, “plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age” and that “the principal driver of this crisis is the accelerating growth in plastic production.” The world has gone from producing 2 megatonnes in 1950 to 475 megatonnes in 2022 and is forecast to produce 1200 megatonnes by 2060. Can this really be blamed on a vast increase in population? Or has it just been insidiously imposed upon us where our need for everything quick, now, fast, convenient, has fed the industry very nicely. Of course, plastic has a very important place in human life but not an all-consuming, all-important place.
So this year, a sixth and final round of talks began in order to come up with a definitive plan. Over 600 organisations backed the Manifesto for a Future Free from Plastic Pollution, set up by #BreakFreeFromPlastic, which called on governments to protect our health and the planet. It outlined ten areas which it was strongly felt should be included in the international agreement. Citizens have been encouraged to write to their MPs and to sign petitions backing this manifesto.
#BreakFreeFromPlastic is a global movement made up of thousands of individuals and organisations (including Surfers Against Sewage, Greenpeace, Tearfund, Friends of the Earth) coming together to “demand and achieve reductions in single-use plastics and to advocate for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis”.
Whatever the outcome, every individual has the choice to make simple changes in their life, from ditching the use of single-use plastic bottles to buying fruit and vegetables loose, from refusing single-use coffee cups to giving up fast fashion. At least we will know that we have tried our best, even if governments continue to let us down. Recycling is not the answer, it’s good but it won’t get us out of the huge predicament we are in; we read frequently that only 9 per cent of plastic produced is recycled.
As Anne Marie Bonneau, the Zero Waste Chef says: “We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.” Wow, wouldn’t that make a difference!