Emmanuel Macron called for “ending a globalized and unsustainable model” of plastic production and consumption on Monday for the resumption in Paris of negotiations on a future global treaty against this major pollution. “If we do nothing, the generation of plastic waste will triple again by 2060. Plastic pollution is therefore a time bomb at the same time as a scourge already present”, declared the French president in a message video to representatives of 175 nations gathered at UNESCO headquarters until Friday.
Reduce the production of new plastics
According to the Head of State, “we must definitively put an end to a globalized and unsustainable model which consists of producing plastic in China or in OECD countries (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, editor’s note), to then export it in the form of waste to developing countries, which are nevertheless less well equipped with waste treatment systems”. “The primary objective must be to reduce the production of new plastics and to ban the most polluting products – such as single-use plastics – and the most dangerous to health as soon as possible”, explains Emmanuel Macron.
While “only 15% of plastic is recycled globally”, “100% of plastics put on the market must tomorrow be fully recyclable”, he continues, pleading like fifty other countries for an end to plastic pollution by 2040. “We also need to give ourselves the means to innovate harder, and faster, to replace plastic with truly ecological alternatives”, declares Emmanuel Macron.
“Ensuring solidarity with the poorest countries”
And he believes that we must “better share solutions, technologies, and ensure solidarity vis-à-vis the poorest countries”. The negotiations are delicate between countries with divergent ambitions, to try to reach a historic agreement covering the entire life cycle of plastic. The President of the Republic recalls “the objective of arriving at an approved text by the end of 2024, one year before the United Nations conference on the Ocean in Nice”.
Annual production has more than doubled in 20 years to reach 460 million tonnes (Mt). However, two-thirds of this global production has a short lifespan and becomes waste to be managed after just one or a few uses. 22% are abandoned (wild dumps, open-air incineration or discharge into nature) and less than 10% are recycled.