Plastics, the 11th plague... on the planet
The figures are indigesting but edifying: 99 % of plastics are manufactured using fossil fuels, 9.2 trillion tonnes since the 1950s, almost quadrupling by 2050. All this plastic is virtually non-biodegradable, but potentially recyclable. Unfortunately, only 9 % is actually recycled, 12 % is incinerated and 79 % is abandoned in landfill sites or in nature.
So we know roughly how much plastic is produced around the world, how much ends up in natural environments (22 Mt, or millions of tonnes), marine and freshwater ecosystems in particular (more than 8 Mt every year, with 140 Mt already accumulated in 2019), and the types of damage suffered by flora and fauna and the balance of ecological functions that link them.
What's more, we need to ask ourselves what role plastics play in climate change. In fact, from its production to its use and destruction or abandonment, plastics, which consume a lot of energy, will release 1.8 Gt (gigatonnes, billion tonnes) of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in 2019, or 3.4 % of global emissions. It is the fastest-growing industrial source of CO2 released into the atmosphere, with a forecast of 4.3 Gt in 2060.
All this clearly shows that the only truly effective solution is to eliminate this pollution at source, and the least we can say is that we are a long way from achieving this. The United Nations Conference on Plastics, held in Paris in early June 2023, did agree to present a draft legally binding agreement in 2024 to reduce plastic production, but the process is stalling because Saudi Arabia, China and the United States in particular, along with the petrochemical industry, have their backs against the wall.
While we wait for better days, an alternative, albeit seemingly derisory, is to individually reduce our "plastic footprint", for example by drinking tap water from a carafe, abandoning single-use plastics, buying "recyclable" products, and so on.
products sold in bulk, etc.
A first step...
