Drowning in plastic

Today marks World Environment Day, held annually on June 5 since 1973. Environmental catastrophe is arguably the most urgent challenge facing the world today and this day serves as an important reminder of the need to address the worsening condition of our planet on an urgent basis. When it comes to environmental crises, much of the attention has been grabbed by global warming and its consequences. This is understandable. The years 2024 and 2023 were the hottest and second-hottest years on record, respectively, and 2025 is well on track to being in the same ignominious company. However, warming temperatures are not the only way in which human activity is doing irreparable harm to the environment. The theme for this year’s World Environment Day is ‘Beat plastic pollution’. According to the UN, more than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year worldwide, half of which is designed to be used only once. Of that, less than 10 per cent is recycled. An estimated 11 million tonnes end up in lakes, rivers and seas annually, causing immense harm to marine ecosystems and potentially poisoning human food supplies via microplastic contamination. Another extremely common plastic disposal method is simply burning it, which contributes to toxic air pollution.

While rich countries are still thought to account for most of the top ten plastic-producing nations and about half of the top ten plastic waste-producing nations, recent decades have seen the Global South’s share of plastic production and waste steadily growing. Pakistan alone generates an estimated four million tonnes of plastic waste every year and the vast majority of this waste, around 70 per cent, remains uncollected or mismanaged. Most people are familiar with what this does in urban areas. We have all seen the drains choked with trash and the flooding this causes, even during light rains and the smell of burning plastic is now such a common part of Pakistan’s urban experience that one hardly even notices it anymore. This plastic burning is a significant part of the country’s air pollution problem, which is shortening people’s life expectancy by almost four years.

Plastic pollution is not just an urban problem and it is not just water bodies being choked and poisoned with plastic waste. This waste also ends up in crops and fields, raising the risk of microplastics entering the food supply. Pakistan, and most of the rest of the world, has not even begun to fully account for how serious this particular aspect of plastic pollution is and the damage it is doing. Going forward, the world needs to urgently transition away from single-use plastics, the variety most prone to becoming waste, towards recycling more plastics and coming up with more sustainable alternatives to plastic. The latter will likely be the only permanent way of dealing with the problem, but that will take many years still. Until then, what plastic waste we do have must be collected and disposed of properly and more must be recycled. And while the Global South is becoming the epicentre of plastic pollution, this is in large part due to rich countries offloading their plastic production and waste to regions with less stringent environmental regulations. This has to change and the global mean when it comes to plastic disposal rules has to be lifted.