This year World Environment Day (WED) was celebrated by many countries as they all campaigned for finding out solutions to plastic pollution. Numerous actions were suggested by governments, cities, businesses, NGOs, academia, civil society, and individuals as collective actions are needed to mitigate climate change and manage plastic pollution in downstream countries.
Some statistics suggest that world is approximately producing 380 million tons of plastic every year; 120 billion plastic bottle made by Coca-Cola every year; 38 billion fragments of plastic found on the uninhabited Henderson Island in the South Pacific; 500 thousand plastic particles per square metre in a river in Manchester, UK thought to be the highest intensity discovered in one place; 450 years for a plastic bottle to breakdown in the ocean; 90% of all seabirds have plastic in their stomachs.
A recent study revealed that, annually, 18-23 million tons of plastic waste flows into our lakes, rivers, and oceans, which is enough to cover every foot of coastline in the world -- 80% of plastic in the ocean originates on land and 1 rubbish truck of plastics enters the ocean every minutes.
The link between plastic pollution and climate change are intricately related. One can paint a picture of plastic pollution and climate change using a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles, where the intersecting area is fossil fuels. A modelling shows that the plastic pollution from the UK floating on the ocean ends up in the Arctic, where Arctic ecosystem is now under stressed. We need to take action immediately, but further scientific research in a number of areas will help pinpoint the most effective actions and create new solutions.
There are some collective actions already happening around the world. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol was introduced to prevent damage caused to the Earth's ozone layer. As a result of that, humanity was able to phase out over 98% of the harmful substances that were causing the damage.
The Ocean Cleanup is an excellent example of collective action -- a large team of people from the Netherlands using a system consisting of 600m long floating structure, which begins to collect microplastics from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Upon collection, the plastic waste is transported by a vessel back to land for recycling. The aim of Ocean Cleanup is to deploy their system to the four other garbage patches located over the world, and hopefully clean up 50% of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years.
One of the most important scientific solutions to plastic pollution that have emerged is the plastic-eating enzyme. In Japan scientists have discovered a plastic-eating enzyme that was capable of breaking down Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) -- the most commonly used type of plastic. This enzyme is a bacterium that can digest plastic by secreting an enzyme called PETase, and ingesting the carbon in PET. Though the breakdown process remains to be relatively slow, scientists have been working to speed it up.
Only collective action can tackle the source problem, but what can individuals do to beat plastic pollution? We can pledge to give up plastic, for starters, and the following pledges can be used as an example:
- To refuse plastic such as not using plastic straws, bags, coffee cups or bottles
- To reduce plastic footprint whenever possible by choosing non-plastic materials
- To reuse plastic items like containers where one cannot refuse or reduce them
- To recycle or repurpose everything else that one can do
- To tell others what an individual is doing to get rid of plastic and encourage them to join such pledge.
Bangladesh has rightly pointed out at the second session of the Intergovernmental negotiating Committee of plastic pollution held in Paris that “since downstream countries manage the cumulative plastic pollution, they could be supported with special multilateral funds.” Bangladesh further added that, “nevertheless, to ensure traceability and transparency, support could be given to develop common methods, definition and standards as a reference for ensuring compliance.”
Above all, plastic pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues the world faces today. As most of the plastics that we use don't break down and dissolve easily, it is slowly filling up our oceans, which will take centuries to disintegrate, posing a tremendous threat to our ecosystem.
Studies have estimated that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the sea than fish if we do not act now. So, our collective action should start now. There are alternatives available to reduce and gradually eradicate plastic pollution. We should harness these options now. However, downstream countries like Bangladesh need finance from the multilateral agencies for managing the plastic pollution.
Dr Kanan Purkayastha is a UK based academic, scientist,environmentalist, and author.