Earth911 Podcast: The Global Water Partnerships' Dimitris Faloutsos Sets the Stage for a Global Plastics Treaty

A new global plastics treaty due to take effect in 2025 will reset the world's strategy for reducing and reversing plastic's environmental and health impacts. Get a primer on the politics and issues defining the agreement from Dimitris Faloutsos, Head of Transboundary Waters at the United Nations' Global Water Partnership (GWP). The Global Water Project and London-based policy institute Chatham House recently released a report, "Why lifecycle solutions are needed to tackle marine plastic pollution." He and his coauthors argue that many solutions are available but require increased investment in the collection and processing of plastic with transparency about the performance at every step in the process to create accountability. The report argues that plastic pollution, which costs society more than $100 billion a year due to health and environmental damage now, will continue to grow until emerging strategies pioneered in Europe, Japan, and Chile — along with new ideas and technologies — to prevent plastic from reaching the ocean. In other words, we have many of the ideas and technologies necessary, and it's a matter of putting them to work while continuing to learn and improve the system.

More than two billion people live without access to waste collection services. Plastic pollution is growing with the volume of plastic produced, which has grown by 4.4% annually since the global financial crisis in 2007. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Global Plastics Outlook reports that 22 million tons of plastic pollution entered the environment in 2019. If society continues plastic business as usual, 44MM tons will pollute the world's waters, land, and animal bodies by 2060. You can read the report at https://circulareconomy.earth/publications/why-lifecycle-solutions-are-needed-to-tackle-marine-plastic-pollution