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“There is no vaccine for the planet. Nature needs a bailout,” warned UN Secretary-General António Guterres, describing the state of the planet in a speech at Columbia University in New York in December 2020. He identified global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to solve the climate crisis and make peace with nature, using the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on climate change as a blueprint.
The challenge is the growing global plastics pollution problem that defies efforts by individual countries to stem the tide. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), global plastic production doubled from 2000 to 2019, from 234 million tonnes (Mt) to 460 Mt, while plastic waste more than doubled during the same period, from 156 Mt to 353 Mt. In 2019 alone, 22 Mt of plastic material leaked into the environment. By 2019, 109 Mt had accumulated in rivers and 30 Mt in oceans.
