Call to support global plastics treaty

An international environmental group is calling for the Government to commit to immediate, concrete action to tackle the world’s plastic problem.

The first Global Ministerial Conference dedicated to plastic pollution started yesterday, and is a stepping stone towards creating a legally-binding treaty on plastics at next year’s United Nations Environmental Assembly. It would be plastic pollution’s version of the Paris climate agreement, and governments worldwide have already announced their support.

The World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) New Zealand chapter is calling for this country’s leaders to do the same.

‘‘Eleven million tonnes of plastic enters our oceans each year. Even in New Zealand, 70 per cent of our beachcast litter is plastic,’’ chief executive Livia Esterhazy said.

With ocean currents able to carry plastic waste to every corner of the globe, a global solution was needed to tackle the problem, she said.

WWF launched an international petition last month calling for people to support a plastics treaty, and it now has more than two million signatures. Esterhazy said at least 4000 were from Kiwis, so it was clear that New Zealanders were concerned about the issue too.

On top of that, two-thirds of the United Nation member states, and 75 major corporations, had said they were open to considering the new agreement.

New Zealand’s Government had recently taken some positive steps, she said.

In July, Environment Minister David Parker announced that a swathe of single-use plastics like drink stirrers, cotton buds, cutlery, straws and fruit labels would be phased out by 2025. Before that, most plastic shopping bags were pulled from stores in 2019.

Parker previously said New Zealand wanted to be part of global solutions to tackle the impacts of plastic pollution. But Esterhazy said the Government had fallen short of endorsing a plastics treaty.

‘‘Plastic is a poison, at the end of the day. Our bodies, our environment, our beautiful animals and birds can’t break it down. If Shakespeare had written Romeo and Juliet with a plastic pen, that pen would still be here today.’’

Marine plastics in particular posed a significant threat to both humans and wildlife, Esterhazy said. New Zealand whales, seabirds and marine mammals were turning up dead on beaches, she said, either entangled or with stomachs full of plastic.

She said that while trees got most of the credit for oxygen, the ocean gave humans every second breath they took.

Parker and the Ministry for the Environment have been approached for comment.

‘‘If Shakespeare had written Romeo and

Juliet with a plastic pen, that pen would still be here today.’’ Livia Esterhazy

World Wide Fund for Nature chief executive