Today, June 5, is World Environment Day and the theme of this year’s event chosen by host country India is “Beat Plastic Pollution”.
To beat plastic pollution, we need to entirely rethink our approach to designing, producing and using plastic products.
This World Environment Day, the goal is to inspire the kind of solutions that lead to sustainable behavior change upstream. Plastic pollution is a defining environmental challenge for our time.
While plastic bag bans in close to 100 countries are having a big impact, more needs to be done at the design stage to reduce global reliance on plastics.
World Environment Day is the UN’s flagship day for promoting awareness and action for the environment. It is a rallying call to action for individuals, for organisations and for the wider community to reduce the impact of plastic pollution on our natural environment, wildlife and our own health.
The United Nation’s environmental arm released a report this month highlighting changes that need to be implemented around the world to slow the rate of plastic pollution and move away from single use plastics.
The world produced more plastic in the last decade than in the previous century, according to the UN.
Each year at least 13 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans. That is the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute and the disastrous consequences of this reality continue to wash up on our beaches.
Nearly one third of the plastic packaging we use escapes collection systems, which means that it ends up clogging our city streets and polluting our natural environment.
As global attitudes change, industries and governments around the world are making drastic moves aimed to reduce the amount of single use plastic waste.
On World Environment Day, social media users across the world were talking about the issue of plastic pollution.