Effects Of Plastic Waste On The Environment – Plastic waste has become a key driver of pollution worldwide, destroying marine, land and air ecosystems.

Prominent representatives from the UN system met on November 10 during the UN Climate Summit 2022 (COP27) to shed light on the often overlooked but nonetheless important link between plastic waste and carbon emissions driving climate change.

Effects Of Plastic Waste On The Environment

The event, titled “How Tackling Plastic Pollution and Plastic Illegal Trafficking Can Help Reduce Carbon Emissions,” explored ways to reduce carbon emissions by tackling plastic pollution and plastic waste trafficking.

Plastics And Human Health

The event was organized by the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (BRS Secretariat), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Today’s event serves as an example of UN entities coming together to provide targeted policy advice and effective technical assistance to Member States,” said UNODC Executive Director Ghada Wali.

She added that international cooperation is particularly important in relation to trade route investigations and mutual legal assistance, which can help stem the cross-border flow of illegal plastic waste.

Approximately 75% of all plastic produced globally ends up as waste, which is especially confusing when you consider that plastic is petroleum-based and is often illegally burned for disposal.

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The Seychelles islands are choked by illegal dumping and illegal burning of plastic through “recycling” programs. “Illegal trade, dumping and uncontrolled burning of plastic are negatively impacting Seychelles’ pristine ecosystem,” said Flavien Joubert, the country’s environment minister, who has outlined a plan to prioritize glass use on the islands.

Illegal movement of plastic is on the rise. Key solutions that are underway include: international cooperation and partnerships between countries and UN agencies, especially in the area of ​​plastic pollution; strengthening law enforcement to combat illegal plastic waste; and the development of alternative materials such as glass.

In the same vein, Ahmad Gunawan Witjaksono, director of Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment, announced the development of a new national policy that will serve as the country’s roadmap to prevent the import of hazardous and contaminated plastic waste.

“Local problems can only be solved through the implementation of global agreements,” said Ecuadorian Environment Minister Gustavo Manrique. As an example, he said that although Ecuador has successfully passed a national circular economy law, 83% of the plastic waste that reaches its shores comes from other countries.

How Plastic Pollution Impacts Our World

The head of the Commonwealth Oceans and Natural Resources Secretariat, Nicholas Hardman Mountford, echoed the importance of global cooperation. He cited actions taken by the 56 Commonwealth countries to combat plastic pollution, including through the Commonwealth Alliance for a Clean Ocean, which addresses the problem of plastic waste in marine ecosystems. “The economy of the future will be waste-free, circular and zero-waste,” he said.

The world should use reusable, biodegradable and compostable plastic substitutes, said Miho Shirotori, responsible for the international trade and commodities department.

Ms Shirotori emphasized that “trade policy can support the transition to plastic alternatives by adjusting tariff and non-tariff measures. The future is not plastic. Plastic substitutes are the future and trade can help with the transition.”

“Trade has too often been the missing link in solving environmental problems,” said Ike Ho Lim, director of trade and environment at the World Trade Organization (WTO). He said the WTO is currently developing possible trade measures that governments can take to tackle the problem of plastic pollution.

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Multilateral environmental agreements have a critical role to play in defining what constitutes legal and illegal waste flows. “Before the Basel Plastic Waste Convention amendments came into force in 2021, countries faced a tsunami of plastic waste imports over which they had no real say in managing,” said Carlos Martin-Novella, deputy executive secretary of BRS Conventions.

The Plastic Waste Amendments legally oblige the 190 signatories to the Basel Convention to adhere to a strict control procedure for the transboundary movement of problematic plastic waste.

They are a stepping stone towards ending plastic pollution, a goal supported by the historic resolution to create an international legally binding instrument to combat plastic pollution adopted at the fifth UN Environment Assembly.

“Tackling plastic pollution provides an opportunity for societies to move towards a circular economy, thereby addressing all three planetary crises: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss,” said Susan Gardner, UNEP Director of Ecosystems.

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Speakers from governments and international organizations at the event entitled “How fighting plastic pollution and illegal plastic waste can help reduce carbon emissions.”

July 5, 2023 calls for urgent support for developing countries to attract major investments in clean energy. There is no denying that plastic is an ingenious material. Made from long chains of synthetic polymers, plastic is strong, lightweight and highly flexible. It can be shaped into a variety of shapes, from drinking straws and bottles to car parts and diapers.

Since the invention of Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, in 1907, the world has gone crazy for plastic. Over the past 65 years, annual plastic production has increased nearly 200-fold, to 381 million tons, according to Our World in Data.

Unfortunately, it now appears that the increasing use of this versatile substance is coming at a cost to the planet. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Woods Hole Sea Grant indicate that some plastic products can take up to 600 years to decompose. Landfills are overflowing, oceans are choking, and wildlife is suffering.

Explainer] What Is The Effect Of Plastic On Ecosystems?

The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2050, the oceans will contain more plastic by weight than fish. The Ocean Cleanup Project estimates that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), an area of ​​approximately 618,00 square miles of marine debris between Hawaii and California, contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic.

Such statistics, along with disturbing photographs of birds and mammals becoming entangled in and even consuming plastic waste, highlighted the scale of the problem. Now, hashtags like #plasticfree are trending on social media as consumers, governments and businesses respond to them.

Data is not only used to track the location and volume of plastic on our planet; it supports the desire to reduce our dependence on it.

TOPIOS (Tracking Plastic in Our Seas) is a 3D mapping platform that uses data to model the movement of plastic waste across the oceans. The project is coordinated by Eric van Sebille, an oceanographer and climate scientist at Utrecht University.

Impacts Of Plastic Waste On The Marine Environment

Mikael Kaandorp, a PhD student also based in Utrecht, is researching the use of machine learning to incorporate plastic distribution data into TOPIOS models. Kaandorp explains that more research is needed to determine where most of the plastic that ends up in the oceans ends up: “Some rough estimates are on the order of several million tons per year, but we only find about 1 percent of that in surface waters.” . , ” He says.

TOPIOS tries to figure out where the other 99 percent is by modeling the movement of plastic through waterways and oceans. The goal is to find out how much of it is in surface waters and how much is in deeper waters – or on the seabed, on beaches and inside animals that have eaten it.

The Utrecht team is modeling the pathways of plastic debris using a combination of field data and high-resolution ocean modeling. They add “virtual plastics” to their computer models and track them using an open-source particle tracking toolkit called Oceanparcels. The code, written in Python and C, is available via GitHub, where it can be maintained by both the TOPIOS team and third party contributors.

“By combining our model and measurements from researchers measuring the concentration of plastic in the oceans, it is possible to create a map in space and time of where all the plastic in the oceans is located,” says Kaandorp.

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TOPIOS shows us where plastic ends up. And Our World in Data, a non-profit website created by the University of Oxford and the Global Change Data Lab, provides free access to plastic-related data. It covers topics such as plastic production, sector exploitation and poor waste management.

The comprehensive plastics database covers the period from 1950 to 2015. It is offered as part of the site’s broader mission to collect data on “the powerful, long-term trends changing our world.” “Other online resources include interactive data visualizations and scientific literature summaries.

The site also has a tracker that tracks data on progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Some of these goals include plastic-related targets, such as: “By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all types.”

The Our World in Data team collates data from three main sources: international organizations, research articles and statistical agencies, including the OECD, the World Bank and the UN. The data is used by media outlets around the world such as The New York Times, BBC and El Pais to report on issues ranging from plastic and poverty to climate change.

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Data provided by teams such as TOPIOS and Our World in Data has helped highlight the problem of plastic pollution. It now supports the following steps.

As governments, businesses and individuals act, data is already showing where progress is being made and where it is not.

A 2018 UN Environment report looked at the legislative steps countries are taking to limit the use of three

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