We’re gross. Image: Christophe Launay
If you’ve been anywhere in the world–anywhere at all–you’ve seen a bunch of plastic garbage somewhere. Bali is covered in it. The shorelines of the United States and Canada are awash. It’s so bad in Kenya that anyone producing, selling, or even using single-use plastic bags can be sent to jail for four years or be fined up to $38,000. We’re gross, us humans. We love our comfort and ease more than we love the survival of our species and all the other ones affected by our continuous outpouring of filth. But wait! On Wednesday, more than 200 countries all banded together and signed a U.N. resolution in Nairobi that will eliminate plastic pollution in the sea. According to Reuters, it’s “a move some delegates hoped would pave the way to a legally binding treaty.”
There’s a stat floating around out there that you might’ve heard, and it’s a gross one. According to the United Nations Environment Program, if we continue on the way we are now, by the year 2050, there will be more plastic in the sea than fish. You know how many fish there are in the sea? Plenty, if all the people who comfort their freshly single friends are correct. Every year, we vomit eight million tons of plastic in the ocean, killing all sorts of sad little creatures like turtles with straws jammed up their noses, seabirds with guts full of plastic, and sperm whales who eat plastic like a fat man at a Vegas buffet. Oh, and since we routinely eat things that happen to live around the ocean, that plastic is making its way into our food chain. Hell, even our tap water is full of microplastics.
“There is very strong language in this resolution,” Norway’s environment minister, Vidar Helgesen, told Reuters. “We now have an agreement to explore a legally binding instrument and other measures and that will be done at the international level over the next 18 months.”
The whole thing was kicked off by Norway, a country full of people who like being alive, would like to continue being alive, and would like their children to also enjoy being alive. They initiated the resolution because of mussels, pretty much. “We found microplastics inside mussels, which is something we like to eat,” Helgesen said. “In January this year, a fairly rare species of whale was stranded on a beach because of exhaustion and they simply had to kill it. In its tummy, they found 30 plastic bags.”
Of course, China is the biggest offender when it comes to producing plastic waste. Something like 1.4 billion people live there, and for a long time, the environment has taken a back seat to producing stuff that the rest of the world gobbles up. Not even a back seat, in fact–it hasn’t even been in the vehicle. China, though, is changing their colors when it comes to greening things up.
“If there is one nation changing at the moment more than anyone else, it’s China … the speed and determination of the government to change is enormous,” said Erik Solheim, the head of the UNEP. “Let’s abolish products that we do not need … if you go to tourist places like Bali, a huge amount of the plastic picked from the oceans are actually straws.”
According to The Independent, however, several countries, including the United States, China, and India “refused to include in the resolution a call on nations to adopt any reduction targets.”
The resolution isn’t binding, though, but it’s a step in the right direction. The countries involved are, at least, admitting there’s a very big problem. “While this is not a treaty, significant progress is being made,” said the chief of public advocacy at UNEP, Sam Barrat. “Thirty-nine governments announced new commitments to reduce the amount of plastic going into the sea.”
Instead of hard and fast reduction targets, the resolution is a little mealy-mouthed. It “urges all actors to step up actions to by 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds” and “encourages” member states to “prioritize policies” that “avoid marine litter and microplastics entering the marine environment.”
The U.N. Oceans chief, Lisa Svensson, thinks drastic measures need to be taken. “This is a planetary crisis,” she said to BBC News prior to the summit in Nairobi. “In a few short decades since we discovered the convenience of plastics, we are ruining the ecosystem of the ocean.”
