Act now! Before plastic outnumbers fish in seas and oceans!

 

On 5 June, the TASS platform and the Ecumene Discussion Club hosted a press conference to mark World Environment Day. 

The press conference was traditionally moderated by Victoria Kladieva, a leading specialist at the TASS Press Centre. 

"Every year, since 5 June 1973, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has celebrated World Environment Day. For 50 years now, events related to this date have become a global platform for information exchange, for raising public awareness about the state of the environment," Victoria Kladieva said in her opening remarks. "This year, Ivory Coast has been chosen as the host country for World Environment Day with the support of the Netherlands. The key theme is defined by the motto " 'Solutions to plastic pollution' as part of the UN global campaign against plastic." 

"This is a global problem, no one could have foreseen how it would turn out when they created the single-use plastic packaging,"Vyacheslav Fetisov, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Chairman of the All-Russian Society for Nature Conservation, stressed. 

"What have we done so far? Together with environmentalists and volunteers, we have cleaned the shores of Lake Baikal, the plante's main freshwater resource. In partnership with the team of the All-Russia Water of Russia Action, the Society cleans up the shores of water bodies (note: in 2022, activists cleaned up 31 044 kilometres of shores of water bodies, and the amount of rubbish collected totalled 148 971 cubic metres). 

For UNEP, this is one of its core activities, and we also educate local residents - the rubbish they leave by the water, primarily plastic - bags, disposable plates, drinking tubes - is then returned to their table in one way or another as food. We expect that as the demand for these comfort attributes decreases, manufacturers will look for other, environmentally friendly technological solutions." 

"Humanity has been engaged in agriculture for more than 10 000 years. All this time it has been a source of not only food, shelter and income, but also knowledge, tradition and innovation," Oleg Kobiakov, Director of the FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, said. "However, many ecosystems are now under pressure far beyond their capacity and therefore need to be restored and used sustainably.

The main task of the agricultural sector is to feed people. By 2050, there will be over 10 billion of us, and to provide this population with food, it will be necessary to increase agricultural production by 70%.

Agribusiness is often said to be the biggest polluter of nature, but this situation is changing for the better today. There are ways to solve this problem, such as organic cropping and conservation agriculture; breeding, developing new high-yield livestock and poultry breeds; reduction of food loss and waste; a circular bioeconomy; efficient waste management, including crop residues (biofuel, construction) and manure (fertilizer); and finally a "green" transition to renewable energy.

Since the 1972 Stockholm Conference, which established UNEP, FAO has promoted environmental improvement within agrifood systems, focusing on the conservation of agricultural land, forests, inland waters and oceans, as well as their sustainable management.

"A better environment" is one of the current FAO four betters.

FAO suggests 5 ways in which the environment can be improved, while enhancing innovation and resilience. These areas of FAO's work include, inter alia:

Promoting a sustainable and circular bioeconomy. A sustainable and circular bioeconomy is at the vanguard of game-changing improvements in agrifood-related areas including microbiome science, alternative proteins, biopesticides, circular waste management and ecosystem restoration.

Managing agricultural plastics pollution. FAO is transforming the way we use plastics in agriculture.

A recent FAO report, published in 2021 (Assessment of agricultural plastics and their sustainability: a call for action), revealed for the first time that plastic pollution in terrestrial ecosystems is likely far greater than that of aquatic ones.

Annually 12.5 million tonnes of plastic products are used in the crop and livestock sectors and another 37.3 million tonnes in the food packaging sector. Most plastic is used in crop and livestock production, which together account for 10 million tonnes per year (2.8% of global plastic production), followed by fisheries and aquaculture (2.1 million tonnes) and forestry (0.2 million tonnes).

Due to the nature of plastic products and how they are used and disposed of, the use of plastic products in agriculture has a disproportionately large impact on global levels of plastic pollution.

By 2030, global annual use of agricultural non-packaging films is expected to increase by around 40% compared to 2018, from 6.1 to 9.5 million tonnes.

The report outlined several solutions to deal with the problem, based on a 6R approach (Refuse, Redesign, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover), while also identifying potentially harmful agricultural plastic products that should be withdrawn as a matter of priority.

FAO is now working with countries to propose technical guidance to cover all aspects of plastics management throughout agrifood value chains.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), through resolution A/RES/73/2842 of 1 March 2019, proclaimed the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Coordinated by FAO and UNEP, the main objectives of the Decade are to support and scale up efforts to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation worldwide and raise awareness of the importance of successful ecosystem restoration.

In Russia, the creation of an appropriate national organizing committee under the auspices of the Commission on Ecology and Environmental Protection of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation is currently being worked out. Such an initiative,” Oleg Kobiakov concluded, “would make a significant contribution to achieving the goals of the Decade."

"If you look back, then at the end of the twentieth century there was a boom in urban planning. In cities, horse-drawn carriages were the main mode of transport. "In New York alone, there were 200 000 horses, each of which produced about 10 kg of manure per day,"Vladimir Moshkalo, Head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Russia Office, said. "In 1888, also in New York, scientists brainstormed for three days to find a solution to this problem. It was resolved only when the cities switched to vehicles powered by electricity." 

"Half a century ago, air and soil pollution, acid rain were considered the main environmental problems. Today, on the agenda we have the transition to sustainable development," Vladimir Moshkalo continued. "And we rely on the help of the academic community in realising these goals. And, in particular, in solving the problem of plastic.

From 430 to 460 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually in the world. Of this volume, 46% simply goes to the landfill. Approximately 20-22% turns into garbage and ends up in the environment. About 17% is burned. And less than 10% is recycled today." 

We see the impact of environmental 'plasticisation' on living organisms, including various aspects of human life," Vladimir Moshkalo stressed. "Unless revolutionary measures are taken, we will only be able to reduce plastic use by 8% by 2040. The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) passed a resolution last year to set up an international negotiating committee to develop a legally binding agreement to combat plastic pollution, including pollution of the world's oceans. A zero draft of such a document has already been prepared." 

"We are sawing off the bough we are sitting on, not realising that tomorrow it will be even harder and more expensive to solve this problem," Vyacheslav Fetisov said. "Let's fix what we have messed up and hurt ourselves.

The press conference was also attended by Evgeny Schwartz, Head of the Centre for Responsible Nature Management at Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Sergei Khlyupin, Head of the Scientific Department of Moscow Zoo. 

BACKGROUND 

Time is running out, and nature is in emergency mode. To keep global warming below 1.5°C this century, we must halve annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Without action, exposure to air pollution beyond safe guidelines will increase by 50 per cent within the decade and plastic waste flowing into aquatic ecosystems will nearly triple by 2040. 

We need urgent measures to solve all these pressing problems, existential for all humanity. 

World Environment Day is the flagship day of the United Nations to promote awareness and action for the conservation and protection of the environment. Over the years, it has developed into one of the largest global platforms for public outreach, celebrated by millions of people in more than 100 countries.