With plastic pollution getting worse worldwide, negotiators descended on the South Korean city of Busan on Monday for a final push to forge a treaty to address this global crisis.
Although it is unfortunate that the industry leaders have failed to reach a consensus until now to get rid of the plastic scourge, they have at least come together to understand the severe consequences of plastic waste on the environment, identifying it as one of the major polluters.
In the conference, 66 countries plus the European Union led by Norway and Rwanda wanted to address the total plastic on earth by controlling plastic design, production, consumption and what happens at the end of its life. But some plastic, oil and gas producing countries, including Saudi Arabia and Russia have long been vigorously opposing such limits.
As a result, plastic production has increased by leaps and bounds. According to an estimate, global plastics production is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, up 70% from 2020. Not only that, plastic also accounts for around three percent of global emissions, mostly linked to its production from fossil fuels.
Yet despite growing production, oil and plastic-manufacturing countries and companies still tend to focus more on recycling measures, even though less than 10 percent of the 400 million tonnes of plastic produced every year is currently recycled.
Surprisingly, though everyone agrees it is a problem, there is less consensus on how to solve it. Evidently, plastic pollution is omnipresent everywhere as it has been found in clouds, the deepest ocean trenches and even human breastmilk.
In Bangladesh, plastic pollution crisis is so acute. Each year close to one million tonnes of plastic waste are generated with single-use plastic mostly ending up in landfills, the local environment or the rivers. According to the World Bank, Bangladesh has become one of the top countries in the world in terms of plastic pollution due to inadequate plastic waste management.
However, Dhaka is the worst-hit city by plastic pollution. As per a survey, in Dhaka, between 2005 and 2020, daily plastic waste had seen a spike from 178 tonnes to a staggering 646 tonnes. The annual per capita plastic consumption in Dhaka alone is 22.25kg that is more than three times the national average for urban areas. Of the 646 tonnes of plastic waste collected daily in Dhaka, only 37.2 percent is recycled.
The good news is that our government has dubbed plastic pollution a major problem and drawn up a National Action Plan for Sustainable Plastic Management based on the 3R approach of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The interim also recently launched a crackdown on widespread use of polythene bags across the country in order to phase out these indestructible materials from the markets.
With this war against polythene bags, the government needs to be more serious and active to wipe out the plastic menace from the country.
