Images from the most remote areas of the sea that are contaminated with plastic waste go around the world. Tons of the material ends up in the oceans. That should be over soon.
Geneva – With the help of an international agreement, plastic waste should no longer end up in nature as soon as possible.
The UN agreement pushed by Germany and partner countries could come into force in a few years, said Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary in the Environment Ministry in Berlin, at the end of a preparatory conference in Geneva.
75 countries have signaled their willingness to negotiate. The starting shot for this is to be given in spring 2022 at a meeting of the more than 190 member countries of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi.
“Yes, in an optimal world the goal would be to reduce plastic waste to zero,” said Flasbarth. He compared this with the 1.5 degree target of the Paris climate conference. There the participants decided to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees if possible.
Negotiations in spring 2022
Rwanda and Peru presented a draft resolution in Geneva with which negotiations are to start in spring 2022. Among other things, they propose that the agreement should promote alternatives to plastic and regulate harmful plastic components. Likewise, money must be made available for poorer countries so that they can do their part to reduce plastic.
“We have no time to lose,” said Alois Vedder from the environmental organization WWF of the German Press Agency. “This agreement must be legally binding and strong, it must not become a paper tiger.” The consequences of a half-hearted agreement would be devastating for the seas. “What gets into the sea stays there for centuries.”
According to estimates, more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced worldwide since the 1950s. 60 percent of this is likely to have landed on landfills or in nature, for example in the world’s oceans. The US environmental organization Pew Charitable Trusts has calculated that the amount of plastic that ends up in the world’s oceans each year will almost triple by 2040 without significant containment. dpa
