Earth Today | ‘Plan for plastics’ - UNEP officer urges proactive response to pollution
Published:Thursday | September 10, 2020 | 12:09 AM
THE REGIONAL and global response to COVID-19 has brought with it an increase in the use of plastics which has been beneficial to the effort to save lives but potentially harmful to the natural environment, and with implications for long-term public health.
This is the word from an officer with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in the Caribbean, Christopher Corbin, who has noted that effective planning is essential to mitigate the ill effects of the increased use of plastics, in particular the single-use plastics associated with the pandemic.
“We have to be careful that the lack of adequate planning to deal with the increases in single-use plastics generated during this pandemic period does not pose greater environmental and public health challenges in the future,” he told The Gleaner.
“Some key issues relate to improving existing waste management structure. Ensuring measures are in place to handle the increase, in particular of medical-related waste, which need to be managed as hazardous waste,” added Corbin, who is the programme officer for the pollution and communications subprogrammes with the Ecosystems Division of UNEP in the region.
An important ingredient of that, he said, is legislation; and with members of industry being important players in the overall effort.
“In the longer term, we need to look at improving legislation and enforcement for waste management and littering, adopting more circular economy approaches with waste as a resource, and working with industry to reduce production of single-use plastics,” he noted.
“Action has to be taken, both at national and regional levels, in terms of domestic and even management of waste at a community level. Systems need to be in place for the proper collection and disposal of both medical and non-healthcare wastes. At the regional and global levels, we also need to advocate for changes upstream, which are about engaging private industry as it relates to plastic production,” Corbin added.
In an article published in July, the UN cautioned against the unfettered use of single-use plastics, even with the significant benefits to be derived during the pandemic. Indeed, the UN noted that if historical data is a reliable indicator, the world can anticipate that some 75 per cent of the used masks, as well as other pandemic-related waste, will end up in landfills, or floating in the seas.
“Aside from the environmental damage, the financial cost, in areas such as tourism and fisheries, is estimated by the UNEP at around $40 billion,” the July 30 article revealed.
“If the large increase in medical waste, much of it made from environmentally harmful single-use plastics, is not managed soundly, uncontrolled dumping could result,” it added.
Specific risks, as noted by the UN, include not only the public health threat from infected, used masks, but also the open burning or uncontrolled incineration of masks, “leading to the release of toxins in the environment, and to secondary transmission of diseases to humans”.
“Plastic pollution was already one of the greatest threats to our planet before the coronavirus outbreak,” said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, director of international trade with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in the article.
“The sudden boom in the daily use of certain products to keep people safe and stop the disease is making things much worse,” she added.