Birth of a new alliance to reduce plastic waste around the world
This month around thirty large global companies announced the launch of “The Alliance to End Plastic Waste.”
These multinationals come from diverse fields including petrochemicals, recycling, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries. They all produce or use plastic in their products or packaging, or process plastic or recycle plastic waste. Some of the companies involved in this alliance are BASF, Total, ExxonMobil, Dow, Mitsui Chemicals, LyondellBasell, Procter&Gamble, Suez, and Veolia.
The alliance has committed to an initial investment of $US 1 billion to help reduce plastic waste in the environment, particularly in the oceans, with the goal of raising $US 1.5 billion over the next five years.
The four pillars to sustain this challenge
Infrastructure: collecting and managing waste and increasing rates of recycling, especially in developing countries.
Innovation: advancing and scaling new technologies that minimize waste, making recycling and recovering plastics easier, and creating value from all post-use plastics.
Education and Engagement: mobilizing action in government, businesses, and communities.
Clean up: removing the plastic waste from concentrated areas already in the environment, particularly the major conduits such as rivers that carry land-based plastic waste to the sea.
Reducing plastic waste is everyone’s responsibility!
Facts about plastic pollution:
- Just 10 rivers transport more than 90 percent of river-based plastics to the ocean.
- Over half of land-based plastic waste leakage comes from just five countries.
- Replacing plastics in packaging and consumer products with alternative materials could raise environmental costs nearly four-fold.
- According to the United Nations, up-to-now only 9 percent of the 9 billion tons of plastic produced has been recycled. Each year, 80 percent of all plastic produced ends up in the oceans, representing some 8 to 12 millions tons per year.
- The UN said that if this current trend continues the world’s oceans will have more plastic than fish by 2050.
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