On the eve of a major United Nations summit on plastic pollution that will begin in Paris on Monday, UNESCO researchers held a press conference on Wednesday to discuss the scale of the problem, but also the solutions.
The “7e continent”, the “plastic vortex”, the “plastic soup” or even the “plastic islands” are terms used by researchers and the media to describe the plastic waste that accumulates in banks in the oceans.
But these quantities of garbage, visible in all the oceans of the world, hide a much worse reality.
“The majority of plastic waste ends up in the water column and on the ocean floor, so only 15% ends up on the surface. So it’s really kind of an iceberg; it’s an image, but it really is,” said Julian Barbière, head of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, at a press conference in Paris on Wednesday.
This conference took place in anticipation of the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, which will bring together in Paris, from Monday, representatives of around 160 States and nearly 850 members of civil society.
This series of summits aims for countries to agree on an “ambitious and legally binding new international agreement on plastic pollution”.
Each year, nearly 8.8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans, and the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, recently pointed out that this is the equivalent, every minute, “of a garbage truck filled with plastic that spills into the ocean.
“70% of the waste produced on the planet is plastic, and around 10% of this waste ends up in the ocean”, underlined Julian Barbière.
The head of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO explained that one of the objectives of the summit which will take place in Paris is to develop “a risk assessment framework” which will allow States to better understand the impact of these marine litter on animals and humans, “because we realize more and more that this plastic pollution is a vector for aggregating other pollutants and can transmit these pollutants to different organisms, including animals” and, consequently , these pollutants end up in the food chain.
Fund more research
According to UNESCO, scientific information on the extent of health risks and the environmental impact of plastic particles in fresh and salt water is limited, hence the importance of more research funding.
“We have to do an initial assessment of the risks in several regions of the world in the coming years and obviously, for that, we need investments and financing. And it is also one of our important messages, that is to say that in the context of these negotiations which will take place next week, we must not forget science, ”explained Julian Barbière.
Fanny Douvère, Head of UNESCO’s World Heritage Marine Programme, added that “it is a global problem that needs a global solution” and that “Member States need to put in place concrete policies , concrete laws that will be the same everywhere. And research is key in all of this.”
She underlined that a “large part of the negotiation is aimed at arriving at concrete political tools” to “reduce at the source”. “The danger is that the treaty remains too vague and leaves room for interpretation” by different countries.
A multitude of different plastics
One of the difficulties for researchers when studying the consequences of plastic in fresh water and the oceans is the enormous number of types of matter to be analyzed.
Vehicle tires, the synthetic textile that comes from washing clothes, packaging, bottles and fishing gear are just a few examples of a multitude of different products that break down into smaller and smaller pieces and form microplastics.
The composition of these particles can vary considerably; they may contain different chemical additives or dyes, so their impact on health and ecosystems also varies.
Hence the importance of establishing rules in the industries that manufacture these products, encouraging the circular economy and implementing policies that will promote behavioral change, according to UNESCO researchers.
Negotiations in Canada
The representatives of the countries who will meet in Paris will try to find “ways to encourage the sustainable production and consumption of plastics, from product design to the environmentally sound management of waste, using approaches based on the use rational use of resources and the circular economy”, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which convened the States to this summit.
In a press release, UNEP points out that if the status quo is maintained, plastic pollution in the oceans could triple by 2040 and reach 29 million tonnes per year.
The session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution which will open in Paris is the second of five.
Negotiations are expected to continue in Kenya in the fall, in Canada in April 2024, and then in Korea in the fall of 2024.