Fight against massive plastic besiege

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02:59

‍The theme of this year’s World Environment Day is “Beat Plastic Pollution.” It is a call to action for people to come together to combat one of the great environmental challenges of our time – plastic pollution.

China enacted the toughest regulations against daily plastic products, the “Plastic Ban,” in 2008. Ten years later, plastic pollution is still a serious challenge for China and the rest of the world.

Just take a look at some of the data. As of today, about 9 billion tons of plastic products have been produced around the world, and the figure is expected to reach 13 billion tons by 2050.

A substantial amount of plastic waste goes to the environment without any treatment. /CGTN Photo

According to UN Environment, the leading global environmental authority, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute around the world, and every year we use up to 5 trillion disposable plastic bags.

Plastic is not only polluting the living environment around us but also causing a problem for the oceans. Every year, up to 13 million tons of plastic leak into our oceans, smothering coral reefs and threatening vulnerable marine wildlife. Plastics can persist for up to 1,000 years before fully disintegrating. Therefore, the negative impacts of plastic pollution could be devastating and long-lasting.

According to environmental experts, the root cause for the plastic problem is that disposable plastic products are too readily available, and are often very cheap or free. Market mechanisms need to be put in place to reduce the use of disposable plastics, and for those that cannot be avoided, follow up with an efficient plastic sorting scheme.

Most communities in China have separate garbage cans. /CGTN Photo

The production and use of plastic has increased over the past decades alongside rising urbanization and better livelihoods. Urban solid waste treatment centers are overwhelmed by plastic waste and other domestic garbage. Inefficient treatment of plastics, like burying them directly into landfills, might lead to heavy pollution of underground water as plastic particles seep into the ground along with rain.

Experts say the best way to deal with this problem is to improve public education about plastic usage. Only when the public is fully aware of the harms of plastic pollution to the environment, to their own health and that of their children, will they gradually turn to more environmental alternatives. It takes time, but it’s an effort worth trying.