The purpose is to create an international agreement on plastic waste in 2024. Finland is also participating in the negotiations.
UN today, Monday, will begin negotiations in Uruguay to solve the global plastic waste problem.
The final result of the negotiations is to create an international plastic waste agreement in 2024. Finland is also participating in the plastic waste negotiations.
The Finnish branch of the World Wildlife Fund WWF characterizes the five-day negotiations as “historic”. According to the foundation, 75 percent of all plastic ever produced on Earth is now waste, and despite increased national regulation in many countries, the amount of plastic waste in the oceans is growing at an accelerating rate.
11 million tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year, and it negatively affects almost all marine animals, WWF warns. Currently, the amount of plastic waste in the oceans threatens to quadruple by 2050.
“Plastic waste is a global problem that requires a global solution,” says WWF’s marine expert Iris Kokkonen in the organization’s bulletin.
“With the help of an international environmental agreement, it has been successful in the past, for example, in banning the use of substances that have weakened the ozone layer, so I am also hopeful that an agreement would now be reached that would help in ending plastic pollution,” says Kokkonen.
According to WWF, the most common plastic waste in Finland is cigarette butts: an estimated two billion cigarette butts end up in nature in Finland every year.
WWF demands that the most harmful plastics are prioritized in the plastic waste agreement: single-use plastic, fishing gear and microplastic. These plastics are the most likely to end up in nature, and are also the most harmful when they do end up there.
According to Kokkonen, most of the plastic that ends up in the sea is single-use plastic. Fishing equipment makes up a smaller slice of the ocean’s plastic waste, but it is the most dangerous for marine animals, says Kokkonen.
In the next two years, the amount of plastic waste ending up in the sea is estimated to increase by the amount of the size of six trillion plastic bags.
“The production of pointless single-use plastics and plastics containing toxic chemicals that are poorly recycled should be stopped. The recycling of plastic should be enhanced and the recyclability of plastic should be improved. With the help of effective waste management and strict regulations, plastic must be prevented from ending up in nature,” says Kokkonen.
WWF and according to a survey commissioned by the Plastic Free Foundation, seven out of ten people think that internationally binding rules are needed to solve the plastic waste problem. More than 20,000 people from 34 different countries responded to the survey. Finland was not included in the survey.
75 percent of the respondents were in favor of banning unnecessary single-use plastic altogether, and almost 80 percent were in favor of banning all plastics that are not suitable for recycling.
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