Grandstand. The subject of the disastrous impact of plastic pollution is not new. The move to action by the international community, however, was slow in coming. The Assembly of the United Nations for the environment finally seems to take the subject head on, with, on March 2, the launch of a process which should lead to an international treaty aimed at combating this pollution.
And the challenge is huge: chemical production has increased fiftyfold since the early 1950s and is expected to triple again by 2050., According to researchers from Stockholm Resilience Center.
Thresholds not to be exceeded
Nine planetary boundaries have been identified as the thresholds that humanity must not exceed for the Earth to be able to regulate itself. The fifth of these limits, chemical pollution, has just been crossed, due to the enormous amount of chemicals and plastics that we produce and fail to recycle well.
Certain sectors – the food industry, cosmetics, mass distribution, etc. – have certainly, under legal pressure or that of consumer associations, begun to take measures. These commitments, like certain voluntary agreements between countries, are positive, but remain largely insufficient to date.
In parallel with international, governmental or sectoral initiatives, certain actors, such as the international certification body Will see, try to organize the response to provide companies and territories with a framework and the means to reduce their impact in terms of plastic pollution.
In recent months, a tool that has not been widely used yet is essential has emerged: “plastic credits”. Like the carbon credits already known, plastic credits aim to enable companies to achieve “plastic neutrality”: for each quantity of plastic created, a measured equivalent of plastic waste is collected and possibly recycled.
Measure, reduce, compensate
To achieve this, companies must follow the sacrosanct triptych: measure, reduce and compensate. This accounting makes it possible to generate plastic credits, which should primarily finance plastic waste collection projects in highly exposed countries, particularly in Asia and Africa.
On the other hand, it is necessary to avoid falling into the pitfalls sometimes encountered with carbon credits – in particular the “right to pollute”, where the company simply buys a stock of credits (carbon or plastics) and affixes a logo to its CSR report (from social and environmental responsibility) without modifying its practices…
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