'Minister of No Plastics Bags' laments failure to halt plastic sea pollution
Fifteen years after South Africa tried to ban throw-away plastic shopping bags‚ former Environment minister Valli Moosa has lamented the lack of progress made by local companies to reduce the torrent of plastic trash flowing into the sea.
Moosa‚ who set up a government and industry task team on plastic litter in 2001 and compelled shoppers to start paying for plastic bags two years later‚ said a number of companies were starting to take a stand against some of the most problematic single-use plastics‚ such as straws.
But this was just the tip of the iceberg‚ said Moosa‚ who now chairs the board of the conservation group WWF South Africa.
“We need to see a far more holistic approach to tackling this. I want to challenge retailers and producers to take the lead and make explicit commitments to limit their contribution to the problem of plastic pollution‚” he said in a statement ahead of Earth Day on Sunday.
Earth Day is a global event in more than 190 countries and the focus of this year’s campaign is to curb the use of single-use plastics and to call for tougher global regulation on the disposal of plastics. “The challenge is that the use of plastic is a complex issue and many people don’t know what they can do about the problem or where to start‚” said Moosa.
“This is why we are developing a programme to help consumers identify the most problematic plastics and empower them to make the right choices.” WWF says plastics are now found throughout food webs in every known marine ecosystem.
“While it is tempting to brush over this problem as something that occurs out of sight‚ as consumers we need to recognise that over 80% of the plastic pollution in our oceans is generated on land by ordinary people like us‚” the conservation group said in a statement.
WWF said although plastics only account for about 10% of man-made waste‚ plastic production has grown 650% since 1975 reaching 270 million tons in 2010. “Because plastics take hundreds to thousands of years to degrade‚ we are still living with every piece of plastic that has ever been made.
This is why estimates are that by 2050 there will be more plastic (by weight) than fish in the ocean.” John Duncan‚ head of the WWF Marine Programme‚ said some plastics played a critical role in packaging for food preservation‚ but the oceans were suffocating under a growing tide of plastic. “If we want to chart a new course‚ we need to start asking ourselves which are the plastics we can live without and how we can better manage the ones we can’t.”
He said single-use plastics (such as sweet wrappers‚ ear buds‚ plastic cutlery‚ coffee lids and straws) were not recyclable and were easily blown around in the wind. Plastic shopping bags were also a problem as many were currently not recyclable due to the inclusion of calcium carbonate fillers.
* Plastics SA‚ an association which represents the national plastics industry‚ has not responded to requests for comment.