UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 (APP): As international negotiators committed to hammering out a draft treaty by November on ending plastic pollution, the UN chief stressed in his message for World Environment Day on Monday, the importance of curbing the \u201ccatastrophic\u201d consequences of waste plastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery year, over 400 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide \u2013 one-third of which is used just once\u201d, said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery day, the equivalent of over 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic is dumped into our oceans, rivers, and lakes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He noted that microplastics are finding their way into the food we eat, the water we drink, and even the air we breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPlastic is made from fossil fuels \u2013 the more plastic we produce, the more fossil fuel we burn, and the worse we make the climate crisis\u201d, the UN chief said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But solutions are at hand: including the legally binding agreement that remains on course, following five days of negotiations involving more than 130 nations last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a promising first step, but we need all hands on deck\u201d, he said, stressing that a new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) shows that plastic pollution can be reduced by a staggering 80 per cent by 2040 \u2013 if humankind acts now to reuse, recycle, and pivot away from plastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe must work as one \u2013 governments, companies, and consumers alike \u2013 to break our addiction to plastics, champion zero waste, and build a truly circular economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTogether, let us shape a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future for all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statistics for the damage caused by plastics are daunting: more than\u202f400 million tonnes of plastic\u202fis produced every year worldwide, half of which is designed to be used only once. Of that, less than 10 per cent is recycled, according to UN figures.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 (APP): As international negotiators committed to hammering out a draft treaty by November on ending plastic pollution, the UN chief stressed in his message for World Environment Day on Monday, the importance of curbing the \u201ccatastrophic\u201d consequences of waste plastics. \u201cEvery year, over 400 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,396,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-latest","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}