[Put simply, world leaders ignored the elephant in the room, said David Azoulay, managing attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law — that “plastic producers are investing massively to vastly increase production of virgin plastic, which can only aggravate the plastic crisis the world is currently facing.”]
By Simon Denyer
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A selection of plastics
found in May near Mothecombe Beach at the mouth of
the Erme Estuary in South
Devon, England. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
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TOKYO
— The Pacific Ocean is
“crying out in despair,” said Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as he lamented
the plastic contamination reaching even to the sea’s deepest and most remote
spots.
At the Group of 20 summit in late June, Abe
unveiled what he called the Osaka Blue Ocean Vision, a commitment to halt
additional plastic waste reaching the seas by 2050.
To the dismay of environmental groups,
however, world leaders at the gathering in Japan made no commitment to curb the
production of new, single-use plastic.
It was a victory for the plastics industry
and the Trump administration, which has blocked any targets or commitments to
curb plastics production.
More than 8 million metric tons of plastic
are dumped into the world’s oceans every year — equivalent to a garbage truck’s
worth every minute — and scientists predict that by 2050 there will be more
plastic by weight in the oceans than fish.
G-20 leaders, whose nations together
represent 80 percent of the global economy, pledged to battle the problem — but
not by producing less plastic. Instead, they are looking to better managing
waste.
Put simply, world leaders ignored the
elephant in the room, said David Azoulay, managing attorney at the Center for
International Environmental Law — that “plastic producers are investing
massively to vastly increase production of virgin plastic, which can only
aggravate the plastic crisis the world is currently facing.”
Yet Abe’s determination to foster concerted
action was undermined by U.S. opposition to curb plastic production, and to any
legally binding commitments, officials said.
The G-20 communique acknowledged the need for
collective action to curb marine litter “through a comprehensive life-cycle
approach that includes reducing the discharge of plastic litter by improved
waste management and innovative solutions.”
The G-20 document also explicitly recognized
the “important role of plastics in society.”
Christopher Chin, executive director of the
Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research and Education in San Francisco, called
it a “slap in the face.”
“Clearly plastic does play a role in society
and some of it is quite useful and I would say even necessary, but we don’t
need to say that,” he said. “But what isn’t necessary is the single-use stuff
that can’t be recovered.”
Since China stopped importing plastic waste
from the rest of the world at the end of 2017, the United States and Japan have
found themselves drowning in plastic, with some U.S. cities canceling recycling
programs and others simply burning waste.
Chin used the analogy of a running tap and an
overflowing sink: The G-20 was trying to clean up the mess without even turning
off the tap.
The Trump administration blames the problem
on Asian countries, where huge amounts of plastic are being washed along rivers
and into the sea, with one study naming China as the worst culprit.
The United States says curbing marine plastic
pollution is a high priority, but insists the answer lies in “environmentally
sound management of waste” and “innovative solutions” to improve resource
efficiency and recyclability.
“We believe these innovations offer more
sound solutions to mismanaged waste and scrap than ineffective restrictions
such as bans or targets,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity under briefing rules.
But environmental groups say this argument
ignores the fact that the United States has long been the world’s biggest
exporter of plastic waste to poorer countries, and also glosses over the role
of U.S. corporations in selling plastics and products packed in plastics to
developing countries, often in small, single-use sachets.
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