Plastics

Plastics

Topic: Environment

In news:

After years of largely neglecting the build-up of plastic waste in Earth’s environment, the U.N. Environment Assembly will meet in February and March in the hopes of drafting the first international treaty controlling global plastics pollution.

About:

The plastic crisis:

“Plastics are the largest, most harmful and most persistent fraction of marine litter, accounting for at least 85% of total marine waste.

• N. figures assert that humanity uses 500 billion plastic bags and 17 million plastic oil barrels annually.
• Some 13 million metric tons of plastic wind up in the oceans every year, and plastic kills 100,000 marine animals annually.
• Another U.N. report, released in October, warned that “plastic production has risen exponentially in the last decades. It now amounts to some 400 million tonnes per year.
• Yet only an estimated 12% of plastics produced have been incinerated and only an estimated 9% have been recycled.
• Flows of plastic waste into aquatic ecosystems are expected to nearly triple from around 11 million tonnes in 2016 to around 29 million tonnes in 2040
• According to a 2019 report from the Centre for International Environmental Law, all this plastic is also contributing heavily to climate change.
• At current levels, greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic lifecycle threaten the ability of the global community to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C [2.7°F].
• “Plastic pollution can now be found everywhere, from the remote shores of the Arctic to the deepest parts of the ocean.
• Up to 12 million tonnes of plastic leak into the marine environment annually, harming biodiversity and posing a threat to food security, sustainability and human health,” the Environmental Investigation Agency reported in 2020.