Start the summit to end "the plague" of plastic: the equivalent of 350,000 Eiffel Towers are produced every year

It accompanies us in every daily act, and the environmental impact it has is as great, and serious, as its presence.. Doing without plastic, or minimizing its use, is one of the great environmental challenges. For this reason, Paris has held a summit since yesterday with representatives of 175 countries (industrial, companies, NGOs, governments…), within the framework of the United Nations, with the aim of negotiating an international treaty on the matter.

It is the third most manufactured material in the world, after steel and cement.. Annual plastic production has doubled in 20 years, to 460 million tons, according to 2019 data (before the pandemic) from the OECD, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.. The organization predicts that this production could triple between now and 2060 if no action is taken.

Single use represents 40% of all production and 80% ends up becoming waste in less than a year. Only 9% of the plastic we use is recycled, 19% is incinerated, half ends up in landfills and another 22% is in the atmosphere in the form of microplastics or nanoplastics.. An impressive fact is that this waste is equivalent to the weight of 350 million cars or 35,000 times that of the Eiffel Tower.

Plastic accounted for some 1,800 tons of greenhouse gas in 2019, which is 3.4% of all global emissions and the OECD forecasts that this figure could double by 2030. “If we do nothing, waste generation will triple by 2060. Plastic pollution is a time bomb, at the same time that it is a plague that is already present,” French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday via videoconference to the representatives of the different countries at UNESCO.. It is the second “plastic summit”, as the first was held in Nairobi, Kenya, a year ago.

According to the French president, host of the event, “we must put an end to a globalized and unsustainable model that consists of producing plastic in China or in OECD countries and then exporting it as waste to developing countries, which are much less equipped to be able to treat them.

global agreement

The objective of this conclave, whose negotiations began yesterday at the UNESCO headquarters, is to reach an agreement by the end of 2024, that is restrictive and that, in addition, takes into account the entire life cycle of plastic, that is, from the extraction of the oil necessary to manufacture it, up to its recycling.

“If we don't react now, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans,” said French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

Macron pointed out that the goal is to make 100% of plastic recyclable and advocates banning single-use. He has also warned that this will require investing in innovation and supporting countries that have fewer resources for it.

At the negotiating table, not all the countries present have the same interests, or the same rush, in this race to minimize the use of plastic. Some countries advocate eliminating single use by 2040, but others, such as China, the US or Saudi Arabia, insist on recycling and improving waste management.. China represents a third of world production and the US generates twice as much waste as Europe.

To set an example, Paris has announced that it will ban single-use plastic ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games.. It will be the first “zero plastic” sporting event, as announced by the city's mayor, Anne Hidalgo, on Friday at a press conference.

No corner of the world is free of plastic: a mountaineer of French origin, Luc Boisnard, and his team have just found a veritable plastic dump in the Himalayas: 1.6 tons of waste, in the form of cans, PVC pipes, tarpaulins bottles, slippers…. The Frenchman, who has told his story to AFP, has a project called Himalayas Clean Up, whose objective is to clean the high peaks that, in some cases, “have also become gigantic garbage cans.”