#Plastic , #SingleUse , #MondayNews
📅 Created in 2010 by Bag Free World, the International Plastic Bag Free Day takes place every July 3rd. On this day, citizens and associations are invited to organize events to raise awareness of the urgent problems caused by the use of plastic bags.
🌱 These single-use bags that many use affect the environment and the lives of hundreds of animal species. Indeed, 2 million plastic bags are used every minute in the world. With 1/3 of plastic waste ending up in nature, the ocean and marine species are particularly affected by this pollution. An estimated 5 to 12 million tons of plastic land in the oceans each year, and according to WWF, 88% of marine species are contaminated by plastic.
⚠️ Global plastic production doubled between 2000 and 2019, from 234 million tons to 460 million according to the OECD and at the current rate, plastic pollution is expected to triple again by 2040. Despite growing public awareness and the landmark treaty against plastic pollution passed in March by the UN, the OECD said plastic pollution is still expected to continue to increase, as we saw in the last #MondayNews.
🔥 Moreover, the current contribution of plastic production to global warming is clearly underestimated. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) estimates that plastics production alone could generate 53.5 billion tonnes of GHG emissions globally by 2050.Yet, in order not to exceed a warming of 1.5°C, cumulative global emissions by 2050 must remain between 420 and 570 billion tonnes of eCO2. Plastic production alone would therefore consume between 9% and 12% of our “emissions budget” by 2050. To reduce this percentage, we must limit our use of plastic as much as possible when it is not essential: as is the case for plastic bags that can be easily replaced by reusable bags.
🧠 Many alternatives to single-use plastic exist: for instance, reuse models are increasingly developed and allow to considerably reduce the use of plastic.
📉 REDUCE, REUSE, and then, RECYCLE!