By: Mohamed Sahr (Mashmarrow)
In an effort to protecting and restoring the Earth`s sanity, this year’s 50th Anniversary of World Environmental Day has brought millions of people across the globe to positively engage in combating the inundated plastic pollution, depletion of the ozone layer, indiscriminate cutting down of trees and the inhuman treatment of the biodiversity among others. For this year, it is not only about celebration but also it is a day that generates a global spotlight on the pressing environmental challenges of our lives and the future generation. Essentially, the day has become the largest global concern for both environmental outreach and awareness raising crusade where tens of thousands of people across the world have turned up with relentless zest to protect the planet for the good of all. Therefore, this year’s theme for World Environmental Day focuses on Plastic Pollution with a hashtag “Beat Plastic Pollution.’’ The 2023 event which was hosted in Ivory Coast is a reminder that people’s actions on plastic pollution matters. The steps governments and businesses are taking to tackle plastic pollution could be the solution of this fight. It is time to accelerate this action and transit it to a circular economy.
Even though the 2022 official event which was hosted in Stockholm Sweden pledged to make meaningful strides and record investments towards environmental protection, including a long-term climate goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2045 and negative emissions thereafter, as well as to stop issuing licenses for new coal, oil and natural gas extraction, more than 65 million people celebrate World Environment Day online every year or so in the bid to support actions and driving changes for the planet. In that regard, the event obliges the world to rethink about newer approaches in order to reduce resource consumption, formulate greener phenomenon that becomes more sustainable, safeguard wild spaces, train and motivate younger generation to harmonize with nature and for them to become the custodians of green future. The resolution to eliminate plastic pollution and forging international legal instruments were nestled by policy makers and world leaders as a way of putting it on swing seat that will be in preparedness by the end of 2024.
More than 400 million tons of plastic are produced every year by diverse industries, and half of which is designed to be used only once. In that, less than 10 percent is being recycled. A clear estimate of over 19 million tones end up in lakes, rivers and sea. For the benefit of insight, Sierra Leone among other African countries serves as a typical example of the abrupt plastic pollution. On a more serious note, the unpleasant littering of plastic wastes especially in major cities like Freetown for instance have clogged the landfills, leached into the drainages and the ocean by every extend. Nonetheless, this human attitude of plastic waste has become one of the gravest threats to the city in general especially during the rainy season where flooding occurs in major streets, people are forced to relocate and homes being vanished.
Consequently, it is estimated that more than 800 marine and coastal species are affected by this pollution through ingestion, entanglement and other dangers. For that reason, discarding a single-used plastic harms human health, biodiversity as well pollute the entire ecosystem ranging from mountain top to the foot of the ocean. Not only that, what is less known is that micro plastics find their way into the food we eat, the water we drink and even the air we breathe. Many plastic products contain hazardous additives, which may pose a threat to our health.
With this in mind, the more plastic is produced, the more fossil fuel is required, and the more people intensify the climate crisis. Also, plastic products create greenhouse gas emissions across their whole lifecycle. If no action is taken, greenhouse gas emissions caused by plastic could account for 19% of the Paris Agreement’s total allowable emissions in 2040 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius that which is observed by United Nations Environmental Programme early this year.
In order to make amends, with the availability of science coupled with the digital trend and the solution to tackle the problems, governments, companies, policy makers and other stakeholders must scale up their game in order to speed action to stop this crisis for the nature not to remain in an emergency reset. However, this day underscores the importance of mobilizing transformative action from every part of the world.