Plastic Bags and climate change are linked in a variety of ways. From air quality to ocean toxicity, plastic bags contribute to eco-system disruption. Habitat destruction, fossil fuel emissions, and plastic pollution are some of the ways that plastic bags and climate change cannot be separated. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil are used to manufacture the 30 million plastic bags that Americans use each year. That is equivalent to the amount of oil in our Strategic Oil Reserve.
When used for bags, it is a wasteful and unnecessary way to deplete our oil supply and contribute to CO2 build-up in our atmosphere. But the buildup of plastic in our oceans is a greater cause of eco-system disruption. An estimated 100,000 marine animals die each year from suffocating on or ingesting bags. Even that number this seems small when you consider the impact of littered bags that break up into small pieces and wash into our waterways. These small pieces of plastic are accumulating at an alarming rate in our oceans.
Less than 10 per cent of the plastic used across the world is recycled. So coordinated and global solutions ahead of expected talks on an international treaty on the issue. A new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report found that 460 million tonnes of plastics were used last year, the number nearly doubling since 2000. The amount of plastic waste had more than doubled during that time to 353 million tonnes.
After taking into account losses during recycling, only nine per cent of plastic waste was ultimately recycled, while 19 per cent was incinerated and almost 50 per cent went to sanitary landfills. The remaining 22 per cent was disposed of in uncontrolled dumpsites, burned in open pits or leaked into the environment.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw the use of plastics drop by 2.2 per cent in 2020 compared to the previous year. However single-use plastics rose and overall use is projected to pick up again as the economy rebounds. Plastics contributed 3.4 per cent of global greenhouse emissions in 2019, 90 per cent of it from “production and conversion from fossil fuels.
In the face of rampant global warming and pollution, it will also be crucial that countries respond to the challenge with coordinated and global solutions. A series of levers is proposed to address the issue, including developing the market for recycled plastics, which only represent six per cent of the total – largely because they are more expensive.
New technologies related to decreasing the environmental footprint of plastics was only 1.2 per cent of all innovation concerning the product. While calling for a more circular plastics lifecycle, policies must also restrain overall consumption. Report calls for major investments in basic waste management infrastructure, including 25 billion euros ($28 billion) a year to go towards efforts in low and middle-income countries. The reports comes less than a week before the UN Environment Assembly begins on February 28 in Nairobi, where formal talks are expected to begin on a future plastics treaty, the scope of which is still unclear. According to a fresh survey, an average of 88 per cent of respondents said an international treaty to combat plastic pollution was fairly important (23 per cent), very important (31 per cent) or essential (34 per cent). 75 percent of people want single-use plastics banned.
