<\/p>\n
\n Today marks International Plastic Overshoot Day, when the world officially exceeds the amount of plastic it can effectively manage in a year.\n <\/p>\n
Today is International Plastic Overshoot Day: the point at which humans can no longer properly manage the plastic waste<\/strong> we produce annually.<\/p>\n For the first time, the day is being marked internationally by Swiss-based research consultancy Earth Action.<\/p>\n \u201cRaising awareness is one of the goals, but empowerment and actionability are arguably even more important,\u201d Sarah Perreard, co-CEO and stakeholder engagement lead at Earth Action, told Euronews Green.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to just educate people about this issue, we want the data and insights in our comprehensive report to act as a tool to drive forward the necessary changes needed.\u201d<\/p>\n International Plastic Day aims to raise awareness of the world’s harmful relationship with plastic<\/strong> and our struggles to adequately recycle it.<\/p>\n 28 July is significant because it averages out every country in the world\u2019s plastic management progress, calculating how much plastic they recycle compared with how much is \u2018wasted\u2019 or dumped.<\/p>\n Some are able to process much more plastic than others.<\/p>\n Denmark\u2019s \u2018overshoot day\u2019 is 26 December because it is good at managing plastic waste<\/strong>. There are only four days where plastic is wasted in relation to the nation\u2019s capacity to recycle it.<\/p>\n Nigeria<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018offshoot day\u2019 is 3 January, meaning that for the rest of the year, plastic is simply not recycled or managed and will often be dumped into the environment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Currently, according to Earth Action, 43 per cent of all plastic waste<\/strong> generated is mismanaged. That\u2019s the equivalent of more than 68.5 million tonnes of plastic this year alone. This includes 420,000 tonnes of chemical additives released into waterways.<\/p>\n Over 40 per cent of the world\u2019s population has, since 8 January 2023, been living in areas where the amount of plastic waste generated has already exceeded the capacity to manage it.<\/p>\n Plastics are not only damaging to the environment but to living creatures as well.<\/p>\n Macroplastic, anything larger than 5mm, can cause entanglement, injuries, and ingestion in animals. While microplastics, less than 5mm in size<\/strong>, have been linked to carcinogenic effects, liver dysfunction, and endocrine disruption – especially if they contain hazardous substances.<\/p>\n The production of plastics doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing down either, with more than half of all the plastics that have ever been made dating from 2000. Global plastic production is estimated to continue to grow fast, reaching more than 1 billion tonnes by 2050.<\/p>\n Many of the highest plastic waste producers<\/strong> in the world are from the Global South – partly because they are also having to take in and process the waste of richer countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBillions of people live without adequate waste management systems and plastic pollution is very evident in some parts of the world,\u201d Dr Tobias Nielsen, a researcher on climate and sustainability politics at the Swedish Environment Research Institute, explains.<\/p>\n \u201cYet, it is not only the national government but also the companies operating in these countries that have a responsibility to develop plastic waste management. The EU can also help in developing waste management systems and of course by ensuring that EU plastic waste does not end up in developing countries.\u201d<\/p>\n The United Nations is now seeking to agree on a treaty on plastic pollution to eliminate waste pollution and waste on a global scale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #International #Plastic #Overshoot #Day #countries #recycling #polluting #material<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today marks International Plastic Overshoot Day, when the world officially exceeds the amount of plastic it can effectively manage in a year. Today is International Plastic Overshoot Day: the point at which humans can no longer properly manage the plastic waste we produce annually. For the first time, the day is being marked internationally by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}There is a Plastic Overshoot Day for every country, every year<\/h3>\n
The world is facing a plastic problem: What does this mean?<\/h3>\n
Why are developing countries struggling to process plastic?<\/h3>\n