By Daphna Nissenbaum, co-founder and CEO of compostable packaging solutions company TIPA
COP27 is back in the news yet again, as world’s leaders gather in Egypt this month. COP26 delivered the Glasgow Climate Pact, a clear step forward. But disappointment was the overriding feeling after the summit, with the agreement coming in for a flurry of disapprovals for failing to address plastic pollution. The subject was not even on the agenda.
That COP27 will again neglect to include plastic as a key item is beyond disappointing. It is scandalous.
The world is producing twice as much plastic waste as two decades ago, and 141 million tonnes of plastic packaging is produced every year. There is no escaping the sense of urgency in tackling the mountain of plastic packaging threatening our planet, especially following recent reports published by the IPCC which have outlined that plastic pollution is altering our ecosystems. The IPCC have even issued a stark warning that it is “now or never” for our planet to limit its polluting activities.
Plastic pollution is a climate issue. The two are intrinsically linked, as the plastics industry would be the fifth largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions if it were a country itself, after the United States, China, Russia and India. Cutting down our plastic use cannot just be a ‘nice to have’.
Though governments and corporations around the world regard recycling as a ‘darling’ solution to this crisis, the technology is simply not up to the task. The bulk of plastic waste ends up in landfill, incineration or leaking back into our natural environment – only 9% percent is successfully recycled.
As Breaking the Plastic Wave made clear, the world must embrace a myriad of solutions, of which recycling is only one. Substituting traditional plastics with alternative materials is another very important part of the picture, but one governments across the world too frequently ignore.
There is a significant opportunity to reduce plastic pollution and improve soil health by investing in compostable materials and the processing infrastructure needed to deal with them at the end of life. There are three key arguments for doing so.
Firstly, compostable products can break down and sequester carbon back into the ground, meaning that we give back to mother nature, providing richer soil for the future with minimal impact on the land. Secondly, increasing the yield of food waste collected and composted across the world, this technology can play a part in significantly reducing methane emissions too. Thirdly, investing in compostable materials reduces the prevalence of traditional plastic contaminating food waste – an essential step to address microplastic pollution in soil, which is up to 23 times higher than that in the seas.
Without quality composting, critical objectives such as reforestation, wetland restoration, habitat revitalisation and carbon sequestration are much harder to achieve. It is time for world leaders to agree on a global plan which will see plastics replaced with more sustainable materials, food waste effectively collected, and soil health improved.
It is not too late to bring this issue onto the agenda. With COP27 beginning imminently, and with the public calls ringing loudly for a plastic pollution action plan, the conference still has time to pivot on this issue. Unless that happens, campaigners’ cries of ‘foul’ will continue to ring out before it has even begun.
