Continuing with the recent themes of our oceans there is an upcoming conference I’d like to bring to your attention.
A meeting of a UN Climate Change conference is planning to
attempt to tackle plastic pollution in the sea.
Currently it is prohibited for a vessel to dump waste plastic overboard
in any waters, both national and international waters. However
there are presently no laws to make countries monitor and control the plastics
entering the sea from land, through either rivers or being blown and dumped on
beaches.
This is a major issue as a 2015 study estimated that around
eight million tons of the 275 million tons of plastic generated annually enters the oceans from the land every year. It is
also believed that this number is likely to increase tenfold by 2020. To put 8
tons in another way it’s the equivalent of five carrier bags per square foot of
coastline globally, which is a staggering idea.
Hopefully when they meet some agreement can be reached in
order to control this source of pollution at least to some degree. Unfortunately
passing international laws is extremely difficult with countries such as the US
not officially agreeing to them but sometimes volunteer to consider the option of abiding by them with not legal commitment which is at least a step in the right direction.
All of this is continuing the UN commitment to significantly reducing plastic pollution by 2025. We can only hope that they achieve their goals in time.
Thanks for reading!
Check out this video from United Nation
