The cost to the environment and human health is huge, says Inger Andersen. Read more at straitstimes.com.
PARIS - Humanity uses and abuses hundreds of millions of tonnes of plastic a year because “it’s so cheap”, despite the huge cost of the pollution it creates, the head of the UN Environment Programme told AFP.
Today, virgin raw polymer is cheaper than recycled polymer. So here’s the question: What will allow us move from that linear “we take it, we make it, we waste it” reality to a circular approach? Right now, it’s so inexpensive you can just throw plastic away. But the cost to the environment and human health is huge, and it is not taxed anywhere.We can’t recycle our way out of this mess. But recycling is one of the many keys that we will need to make this work.
But every consumer has a choice. Let’s say we have a party. Do we need single-use cups and plastic bags? If that bag I use to carry home five tomatoes is a heavy polymer, it will sit in a landfill for hundreds of years, maybe a thousand. Why are supermarket bananas in a plastic bag? Nature already delivered them with their own packaging.
The popular demand for solutions has become powerful, and it’s coming across the board from left to right in most countries. I put it down to activism across a broad spectrum, and I am very, very grateful. I ask all those activists to keep the heat on to ensure that the treaty had ambitious and binding elements.For this second round of negotiations, we have 2,800 participants – 908 from government and 1,712 from non-government organisations . There are 10 industry associations represented.
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