This article originally appeared in the Calgary Herald on April 20, 2024.
Earth Day, founded in 1970, marked the birth of modern environmental activism. Canada has been a strong supporter of this movement ever since.
Today, Earth Day is a global force that unites people across political, philosophical and geographical lines.
As we celebrate this year’s Earth Day on April 22, we face one of the most urgent environmental challenges of our time: plastic pollution. Plastics are essential for many aspects of our daily lives, so we cannot simply eliminate them. What we need is a collaborative framework that addresses plastic pollution from design to disposal.
We believe that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meetings, which aim to create a binding agreement to combat plastic pollution by the end of this year, offer such an opportunity.
There is no single solution to this complex problem and we cannot apply a uniform model to every country and context. Rather, we need to involve all stakeholders and take shared responsibility along the entire value chain, by adopting a circular approach that reuses or remakes products instead of throwing them away. To achieve this, we propose the following key principles.
Design for circularity: We must make products that are easier to reuse or remake. This is not a simple task, but it is increasingly happening. The agreement should promote consistency in product design and performance based on accepted international standards, and encourage sustainable consumption.
Level the playing field: To become “circularity ready,” economies need a policy framework that creates incentives for circularity. At the same time, we must harmonize policies while respecting geographic and market differences in capabilities, infrastructure and existing frameworks. The agreement should support the reduction, reuse, refill and repair of plastic products.
Customize waste collection: The UN estimates that 2.7 billion people lack access to basic waste management, with huge gaps between the global north and south. A universal standard would not work. Instead, we need to establish or improve waste collection and sorting infrastructure that promotes circularity. To fund this, we can implement Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) or similar schemes that use collected fees for waste management. This would enhance recyclability and promote safe and environmentally sound management of plastic products throughout their life cycles.
Enable trade to drive value for circularity: Trade is essential to build more environmentally sustainable economic development. The trade-related aspects of the agreement should contribute to global solutions that address plastic pollution, by supporting ongoing efforts under the Basel Convention, the World Trade Organization and World Customs Organization. For countries lacking recycling infrastructure, trade can reduce leakage of plastic into the environment and help enable circularity by capturing value from plastic waste that could be recycled. By promoting access, investment, technical assistance and capacity building in waste management and recycling technologies, parties — especially developing countries — will be better able to participate in trade and benefit from a circular economy.
Plastic pollution is a serious threat that requires immediate action. Plastics are also a valuable resource that we cannot afford to waste.
Like the Earth Day vision, we must work together to achieve this.
By engaging all stakeholders and enhancing circularity, we can make progress toward a cleaner and greener future.