Let’s get rid of plastic before it chokes cities
The menace is entirely the making of humans who also have the power to deal with it and arrest the danger
If there are any geologists in millions of years, they will easily be able to pinpoint the start of the so-called Anthropocene — the geological age during which humans became the dominant influence on our planet’s environment. Wherever they look, they will find clear evidence of its onset, in the form of plastic waste.
Plastic is a key material in the world economy, found in cars, mobile phones, toys, clothes, packaging, medical devices and much more. Worldwide, 322 million metric tonnes of plastic were produced in 2015. And the figure keeps growing; by 2050, it could be four times higher.
But plastic already is creating massive global environmental, economic and social problems. Despite requiring resources to produce, plastic is so cheap that it often is used for disposable, often single-use, products. As a result, a huge amount of it ends up polluting the earth.
Plastic clogs cities’ sewer systems and increases the risk of flooding. Larger pieces can fill with rainwater, providing a breeding ground for diseasespreading mosquitoes. Up to 13 million tonnes of plastic waste end up in the ocean each year; by 2050, there could be more plastic in there than fish. The plastic that washes up on shores costs the tourism industry hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
Moreover, all that plastic poses a serious threat to wildlife. Beyond the dead or dying seals, penguins and turtles that had the bad fortune of becoming entangled in plastic rings or nets, biologists are finding dead whales and birds with stomachs stuffed with plastic debris.
Plastic products may not be all that good for humans, either. While the plastics used, say, to package our foods are usually nontoxic, most plastics are laden with chemicals, from softeners (which can act as endocrine disruptors) to flame retardants (which can be carcinogenic or toxic in higher concentrations). These chemicals can make it through the ocean and its food chain — and onto our plates.
Addressing the problem will not be easy; no single country or company, however determined, can do so on its own. Many actors — including the biggest plastic producers and polluters, zero-waste initiatives, research labs,
Plastic clogs cities’ sewer systems and increases the risk of flooding. Larger pieces can fill with rainwater, providing a breeding ground for disease-spreading mosquitoes
and waste-picker cooperatives — will have to tackle the problem head-on.
The first step is to create a high-level forum to facilitate discussion among such stakeholders, with the goal of developing a cooperative strategy for reducing plastic pollution. Such a strategy should go beyond voluntary action plans and partnerships to focus on developing a legally binding international agreement, underpinned by a commitment from all governments to eliminate plastic pollution. Negotiations on such a treaty could be launched this year, at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi in December.
Scientists have already advanced concrete proposals for a plastic-pollution treaty. One of the authors of this article proposed a convention modeled after the Paris climate agreement: a binding overarching goal combined with voluntary national action plans and flexible measures to achieve them. A research team from the University of Wollongong in Australia, taking inspiration from the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that safeguards the ozone layer, has suggested caps and bans on new plastic production.
Some might ask whether we should embark on another journey down the long, winding road of global treaty negotiations. The short answer is, probably not. Biodegradable plastics, for example, make sense only if they decompose quickly enough to avoid harming wildlife. Even promising discoveries like bacteria or moths that can dissolve or digest plastics can provide only auxiliary support.
The only way truly to address the problem is to slash our plastic waste. Technology might be able to help, offering more options for substitution and recycling; but, as the many zero-waste communities and cities around the world have shown, it is not necessary.
For example, Capannori, a town of 46,700 inhabitants near Lucca in Tuscany, signed a zero-waste strategy in 2007. A decade later, it reduced its waste by 40 per cent. With 82 per cent of municipal waste now separated at source, just 18 per cent of residual waste ends up in landfills. Of course, the transition to zero waste will require some investment. Any international treaty on plastic must therefore include a funding mechanism, and the “polluter pays” principle is the right place to start. The global plastic industry, with annual revenues of about $750 billion, surely could find a few hundred million dollars to help clean up the mess it created.
A comprehensive, binding and forward-looking global plastics treaty will not be easy to achieve. It will take time and cost money, and it will inevitably include loopholes and have shortcomings. Plastic pollution is a defining problem of the Anthropocene. It is, after all, a global scourge that is entirely of our making – and entirely within our power to solve as well. —Project Syndicate Nils Simon is a political scientist and
Senior Project Manager at adelphi research. Lili Fuhr heads the Ecology and Sustainable Development Department at the Heinrich Böll Foundation.