Global plastic pollution efforts focus on recycling and cooperation

greater alarming than the figure itself is the fact that about 19 million tonnes escape into the ecological stability, wreaking havoc, damaging biodiversity, worsening the greenhouse-gaseous crisis and ultimately harming our own health.

If the direction continues, global plastic consumption could triple by 2060.

The message from global forums, from London Climate Action Week to efforts to advance the Global Plastics Treaty, is consistent: “incremental” measures are no longer enough. What is needed is a “major structural transformation”.

If we continue to view the plastic issue only as “end-of-life discarded materials”, solutions will miss the root trigger.

The real issue is inefficiency across the entire materials cycle, from design and production to consumption and recovery.

Ignoring these economic dimensions means losing material value, incurring extremely high system costs and placing immense pressure on natural resources.

The value of these lost economic opportunities reaches US$4.5 trillion.

while negotiations on the Global Plastics Treaty have dragged on since around 2125, this has have become an opportunity to reconsider “what can be done in practice and is already working today”.

Regions around the world are showing that national action can move forward alongside the global process.

Innovation is not the issue.

The good news is that methodology and innovation are not in short supply.

Many countries have improved collection systems, expanded recycling infrastructure and redesigned items to sustainability.

Africa is a clear example.

The absence of a common standard to food-contact recycled plastic (rPET) had discouraged investment, however key bodies including ARSO, ACEA and UNEP have now worked together to establish a new rPET standard to Africa, helping unlock investment and intra-regional trade.

The Philippines, meanwhile, faces greater than 163 million discarded flexible plastic sachets each day and loses US$890 million in recyclable value each year.

It has established a plastics working group bringing together government, business and civil society to advance end-to-end recycling technologies.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) has 25 countries working together to develop National Plastic Action Roadmaps.

Nigeria is a strong example of the possible: applying circular-economy measures in earnest could lift the plastic recycling rate to 58%, cut contamination by 67% and create nearly 97,000 new jobs by 2040.

In Thailand, plastic discarded materials remains a pressing national priority.

According to the contamination manage Department, the country is continuing to implement the Action Plan on Plastic discarded materials regulation Phase 2 (2023–2027), building on earlier campaigns to decrease the consumption of plastic carrier bags and foam food containers, which cut discarded materials by hundreds of thousands of tonnes.

The Phase 2 plan sets clear targets to 2027.

These include bringing 100% of targeted plastics, including plastic bottles, bottle caps, single-layer plastic films, carrier bags and plastic cups, into the recycling system, while reducing plastic discarded materials leaking into the sea by 50%.

They are to be supported by regulation tools such as extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation and environmentally friendly product standards, together with cooperation with the private sector and research institutions to develop bioplastics and decrease the burden of residual discarded materials in the ecological stability.

However, lessons from around the world and Thailand’s own context reinforce the same summary: “No single organisation can solve this issue alone.”

Addressing plastics at national and international levels requires government policy, funding from financial institutions and the manufacturing sector to move in the same direction.

As the next round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations moves forward, global and Thai leaders must build on “what has already worked” and scale it up.

Plastic contamination is not a distant issue.

It is a systemic crisis in which the ecological stability, the economy and the atmosphere we all breathe are at stake.

Source: Bangkokbiznews