Finally, the issue of Plastic pollution seems to be addressed in the right direction by the world. In a mandate held on March 2, 2022, a total of 175 nations agreed to start writing a global treaty on plastic pollution.
In the UN environment meet, The president of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) and climate and environment minister of Norway Mr. Espen Barth Eide said ‘We are making history today’.
The member states of UNEA in the meet held at Nairobi discussed the terms of the treaty and agreed it should address the “full life cycle of plastics”. This resolution urged the United Nations Environment Programme to convene an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which will commence its work during the second half of 2022, with the ambition of completing its work by end of 2024.
This mandate also recommended addressing the toxic burden of plastic following hundreds of studies showing the impact of plastic in the environment and its presence in air, agricultural lands, and drinking water. Toxic chemicals from plastic have been shown to enter the human body through a variety of routes, causing infertility, cancers, and metabolic dysfunction, among others.
The blueprint for the plastic pollution resolution is being compared to the Montreal protocol to prevent ozone layer depletion and the Paris agreement to contain the effects of climate change.
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