World Environment Day | Can we beat plastic pollution? – Firstpost

Plastic, the necessary evil, has become entangled in our web of life, spanning both tradition and modernity, from plumbing to healthcare, from home to Parliament. Invented in 1860, and the first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was produced in 1907, the suitability, affordability and availability of the plastic have generated a colossal quantity of plastic waste that is choking the very survival of the living Planet.

The plastic pollution is so alarming that the UN has called on a second time in two years (last in 2023) on World Environment Day to end the plastic pollution. Strategically, the World Environment Day’s repeat theme of ‘beat the plastic pollution’ is to ignite the countries to agree on plastic pollution during the forthcoming UN Ocean Conference (June 9-13, 2025) and second part of fifth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic in Geneva (August 5-15, 2025). Similarly, India steps up its campaign for ‘one nation, one mission- End Plastic Pollution’. Can we overcome the intricate dependence on single-use plastic (SUP) or end plastic pollution?

While plastic has been increasingly and immeasurably integrated in our daily lives for the last several decades, littering of SUP items in our ecosphere has severe adverse and hostile effects on terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems.  Plastic has become so intertwined that our ecosphere has evolved into a ‘plastisphere’ – an ecosystem consisting of human-made plastics. The use, abuse and misuse of plastic has become the single most significant and dominant contribution of humankind that transforms the geological era, which is famously termed as Anthropocene- the age of humans.

Meanwhile, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that the world produces approximately 413.8 million tonnes of plastic annually (in 2023). Two-thirds of which (more than 280 million tonnes) are short-lived plastic products that quickly become waste, filling the ocean and, often, finding their way into our food chain. Of the more than 8 billion tonnes of plastic waste generated globally to date, less than 10 per cent has been recycled at a snail’s pace. About 22 per cent of plastic waste worldwide is neither collected nor properly disposed of, or ends up as litter.

However, recycling plastic is not without its risks. One of the recently released studies, Forever Toxic: The science of health threats from plastic recycling, found that this process not only increases the toxicity of plastics but also poses a threat to the health of consumers, frontline communities, and workers in the recycling sector. Is the hype surrounding plastic recycling veering towards myth?

Whereas global plastic waste generation has increased more than sevenfold in the past four decades to 360 million metric tonnes per year, projections indicate that waste generation by 2040 will be double the current quantity and may exceed 615 million metric tonnes. Many of us use plastic products every day without even considering where they end up.

Are we truly aware that one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute worldwide, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used globally each year? In total, half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes — used just once and then discarded. We are so addicted to single-use plastic that it seems unthinkable to eliminate it immediately. According to the UNEP, plastics contain over 13,000 chemicals, with more than 3,200 of them known to be hazardous to human health, while the safety of the remainder has not yet been assessed.

More intriguing is how 75 to 199 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans to date. Every year, two million metric tonnes of plastic enter the ocean. The sorry state of plastic pollution can be assessed with the most intriguing photo by photographer and naturalist Justin Hofman depicting a seahorse in the ocean near Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, clinging to a bright pink plastic cotton swab. It is projected that if we don’t change our behaviour towards the use of plastic, we may seriously intervene with our aquatic ecosystems, with a projected 23-27 million tonnes per year of plastic waste by 2040.

India’s one nation, one mission to end plastic pollution

Plastic is ubiquitous in India. India has become the world’s largest contributor to plastic pollution, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the total global plastic waste. With 9.3 million tonnes of plastic waste generated annually in India, a staggering 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste are mismanaged. Among the States and Union Territories, Tamil Nadu has produced the largest plastic waste, while Sikkim generated the lowest in 2023. India’s per capita plastic consumption has grown to approximately 11 kg per year and is expected to rise significantly with the increasing consumerism.

However, India has been specifically addressing the plastic menace through various policy initiatives domestically and globally by engaging in two important treaty negotiations- a global plastic treaty and the Open Seas Biodiversity treaty. Unilateral ‘casual’ measures date back to the early 2000s when states had imposed a ban on plastic bags. Those state-wide initiatives failed due to a lack of awareness and unpopularity, and non-enforceability. However, the Plastic Waste Management Rules (PWMR), 2016, provide the statutory framework for plastic waste management in the country.

Meanwhile, India has banned 19 identified single-use plastic items, which have low utility and high littering potential, since 1st July 2022 through the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021. India also prohibits the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of plastic carry bags having a thickness less than seventy-five microns from September 2021, and having a thickness less than one hundred and twenty microns from December 2022. The Guidelines on the Extended Producer Responsibility for plastic packaging instruct mandatory targets on recycling of plastic packaging waste, reuse of rigid plastic packaging and use of recycled plastic content.

Even so, we keep on using and abusing our surroundings and asking vendors to provide the banned products. Simple awareness programs are not yet effective. Therefore, who will oversee the enforcement of the implementation of the ban on identified single-use plastic items and on plastic carry bags? We must not expect the special task forces of states and Union Territories and the National Level Taskforce to monitor and implement successfully a complete ban on single-use plastic.  When estimated against a business-as-usual scenario by one billion Indians in 2022-23 to 2027-28, the impact of LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) actions can be significant in ending 375 million plastic waste if using a cloth bag instead of plastic.

What is India’s position on the global plastic treaty?

In the meantime, India’s official position from the beginning of the intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC), the group established to negotiate an international agreement on plastic pollution, has been to ensure the ‘fairness, equity, shared responsibility, collective commitments and consensus-based actions’ rather than majority-based decision making.

India argues, as a common strategy in all multilateral environmental negotiations, that it must be acknowledged that countries have different levels of development, unique circumstances and differential contribution to plastic pollution as we are witnessing now. Therefore, India prefers a mix of both global mandates and largely voluntary approaches to tackle the plastic menace. Many external stakeholders have commented that India, with other countries, has become obstructionist to a global legally binding plastic treaty. After US President Donald Trump reversing the federal push away from plastic straws in February this year, all eyes will be on India during the UN Ocean Conference and final meeting on plastic in Geneva for a successful global plastic treaty.

In the meantime, a multi-prong strategy both within and beyond can be justified to end plastic pollution. Ultimately, it has been reflected in various goals under SDGs- responsible consumption and production (Goal 12), climate action (Goal 13), life below water (Goal 14), life on land (Goal 15), to end the plastic pollution. Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution, in its 58th session (April 4, 2025), recognising, for the first time, the critical connection between plastic pollution, ocean protection and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

To reach a successful global treaty, countries must thrash out principles of reuse, reorient, regulate and diversify the dependence on plastic.  The ambitious treaty, expected to progress during the final meeting in Geneva in August, may anchor on provisions for re-designing and rethinking the way we package, affordable and accessible alternatives to plastics, improving the waste management infrastructure, the principle of polluters pay, a predictable financial mechanism and access to technology and so on. Likewise, it is time to change how we produce, consume and dispose of the plastic we use. This is possible when we change our mindsets and behaviours. Let’s start with reducing our dependence on single-use plastic from this World Environment Day onwards.

Dr Avilash Roul, International Advisor on Transboundary Water and Climate Change Risk, is a Senior Fellow at the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict (SSPC), a Delhi-based think tank. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.