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The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has marked Valentine’s Day with a campaign urging people to end their “toxic relationships” with single-use plastic and be faithful to reusable containers to control rising marine pollution.
One party that has recently initiated a dramatic break-up with plastics is China. It severed its recycling deal with developed countries last month, stepping away from a relationship that campaigners would definitely characterize as abusive.
China has been recycling 70 percent of the world’s waste for nearly two decades, according to the UN. While the US last year exported 1.42 million tons of plastics to recyclers in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, almost 90 percent of the plastic waste arriving in China was from the EU.
The Chinese government has been opposing poor-quality waste exports flouting World Trade Organization standards since 2010.
“The imports of plastic waste have had disastrous impacts on the environment and people’s health in China. Batches were often contaminated with hazardous materials, such as medical trash, endangering workers in the recycling facilities,” the UNEP said in a press release.
July 3, 2013: A boy fishes in the polluted sea backwaters near Marina Beach in the southern Indian city of Chennai.
After breaking things off with waste from the West, China will have an opportunity to deal with overflowing domestic plastic waste more efficiently.
According to the UNEP, up to 2.41 million tons of plastic goes into rivers around the world every day. Recent research published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal revealed 10 rivers transport more than 90 percent of the plastic that ends up in oceans.
Eight of these rivers are in Asia – the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, Yangtze, Haihe, Pearl, Mekong and Amur.
UNEP’s Valentine’s Day campaign is based on a short video, “It’s not me, it’s you,” featuring people cathartically addressing the disposable cutlery, water bottles, food containers and shopping bags that have heretofore been a big part of their lives.
“A simple, conscious, switch to glass or metal tumblers or cups, or carrying a reusable shopping bag can have a lasting impact,” the UNEP said.
According to the organization, “By 2050, the oceans will contain more plastic than fish. Plastic is a material made to last forever, yet 33 percent of all plastic – water bottles, bags, and straws – is used just once, often for a few minutes, and then thrown away.”
Plastic waste may have been rejected by China but there are concerns about who this abusive lover will hook up with next.
Environmentalists fear China’s refusal to take the West’s waste will just mean it ends up in another developing nation.
“China’s policy decision should not mean that the ‘problem’ of plastic waste is relocated to other countries or buried on landfill sites,” the UNEP said.
(CGTN)
