Den 5. juni er den internationale miljødag, World Environment Day. Her er der hvert år fokus på naturen, rent vand og luft, verdens dyr og meget andet.
I år er Indien vært for mærkedagen, og temaet er udfordringen med plastik, et materiale, som efterhånden har sat sit præg på naturen på hele kloden.
Eksempelvis døde en hval for nyligt i Thailand efter at have slugt mere end 80 plastikposer, skriver The Guardian søndag.
Hashtagget #Beatplasticpolltution er i år dedikeret til at rette opmærksomhed mod plastaffaldets indtrængen overalt.
Forbud mod plastikposer
Plastikudfordringen har allerede fået mange nationer til at indføre tiltag for at begrænse forureningen. Senest har Chile indført et forbud mod engangs plastikposer.
Det er det første land i Latinamerika med et sådan tiltag, men Kenya har allerede forbudt de naturskadelige bæreposer.
Hovedbudskaber
Materialet fra UN Environment oplister en række kernebudskaber for den grønne dag tirsdag:
• Plastic pollution is a defining environmental challenge for our time.
• In the next 10-15 years global plastic production is projected to nearly double.
• Avoiding the worst of these outcomes demands a complete rethinking of the way we produce, use and manage plastic.
• Individuals are increasingly exercising their power as consumers. People are turning down plastic straws and cutlery, cleaning beaches and coastlines, and reconsidering their purchase habits in supermarket aisles. If this happens enough, retailers will quickly get the message to ask their suppliers to do better.
• While these steps are a cause for celebration, the reality is that individual action alone cannot solve the problem. Even if every one of us does what we can to reduce our plastic footprint – and of course we must – we must also address the problem at its source.
• Consumers must not only be actors but drivers for the behaviour change that must also happen upstream.
• Ultimately, our plastic problem is one of design. Our manufacturing, distribution, consumption and trade systems for plastic – indeed our global economy – need to change.
• The linear model of planned obsolescence, in which items are designed to be thrown away immediately after use, sometimes after just seconds, must end.
• At the heart of this is extended producer responsibility, where manufacturers must be held to account for the entire life-cycle of their consumer products. At the same time, those companies actively embracing their social responsibility should be rewarded for moving to a more circular model of design and production, further incentivizing other companies to do the same.
• Changes to consumer and business practice must be supported and in some cases driven by policy.
• Policymakers and governments worldwide must safeguard precious environmental resources and indeed public health by encouraging sustainable production and consumption through legislation.
• To stem the rising tide of single-use plastics, we need government leadership and in some cases strong intervention.
• Many countries have already taken important steps in this direction.
• The plastic bag bans in place in more than nearly 100 countries prove just how powerful direct government action on plastics can be.
Video med Schwarzenegger
UN Environment har lavet en kort teaser, hvor bl.a. den amierkanske skuespiller, bodybuilder og tidligere californske guvernør, Arnold Scwarzeneger optræder.
Her er fakta fra UN Environment om plastikaffald:
- Every year the world uses up to 5 trillion plastic bags
- Each year, at least 13 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute.
- In the last decade, we produced more plastic than in the whole last century
- 50 percent of the plastic we use is single-use or disposable
- We buy 1 million plastic bottles every minute
- Plastic makes up 10% of all of the waste we generate
