Plastic Pollution To Be Reduced By 80% By 2040: UNEP Report
The world will overcome the major environmental problem of plastic pollution in the next 20 years, recently launched United Nations Environmental Programmes (UNEP) claimed that global plastic pollution will be reduced by 80 per cent by 2040.
The report is titled “Turning off the Tap: How the world can end plastic pollution and create a circular economy” focusing on the ways to curb the pollution created by plastic and adopting the circular economy. As the world is heading more into the development-oriented timeline, plastic will be a bigger constraint for a sustainable future.
Apart from an optimistic prediction, the report also emphasises the expansion of the circular economy based on the principles of reuse, recycling and reduction. The report firmly put forward the ‘circular economy’ as the major solution to environmental pollution.
The report suggested multiple measures to enrol the circular economy in the system by ensuring proper disposal of non-recyclable plastic waste. The study also advocates Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes that can arrange the finance for the recycling and other processes of plastic wastage.
Most importantly, the report highlighted the transformation, the circular economy can bring to the world. According to the report, the circular economy can save USD 1.27 trillion and by avoiding externalities such as health, climate, and air pollution, a further USD 3.25 trillion can be saved.
In the meantime where corporate giants are laying off employees on a large scale, as per the report circular economy can generate 700,000 jobs by 2040.
In a country like India which has a living population of 1.42 billion, environmental concerns need to be one of our major priorities. Fortunately, India is walking in the same direction, Union Minister, Bhupendra Yadav in one of his addresses in Kolkata informed that 11,000 billion tonnes of garbage accumulated in India which has an opportunity to be recycled.
Prime Minister, Narendra Modi have been constantly promoting the implementation of a circular economy for the revamping of the environment. In the inauguration ceremony of the National Conference of Environment Ministers in Ekta Nagar, Gujarat in 2022, the PM urged all the environment ministers to promote a circular economy as much as possible in the states.
