No Time to Waste: Tackling the Plastic Pollution Crisis Before it’s Too Late

Abstract

Plastic pollution is destroying our natural environment and harming the poorest people on the planet. For every person born since the 1950s, one tonne of plastic has been produced and less than a tenth of this has been recycled. Around half the amount of plastic waste we produce globally is packaging that is used just once. This report describes the environmental destruction, sickness, mortality, and damage to livelihoods that the plastic pollution crisis is causing. It outlines the problem – namely the huge recent increase in the production and distribution of single-use plastics, and its expansion across the globe to countries lacking the capacity to collect, manage and recycle waste. And it spells out the solutions. Current trajectories point to increased illness and unnecessary deaths, further harm to livelihoods and greater destruction of our environment. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In this report we outline the roles and responsibilities of four groups we believe to be key to tackling the plastic pollution crisis: multinational consumer goods companies who drive the production of single-use plastic packaging, and currently do little to collect and sustainably manage the waste they have created; developed country governments who have enabled and incentivised a ‘throwaway’ culture and whose response to the crisis in developing countries has so far been weak; developing country governments whose citizens are the most severely impacted by the crisis; citizens who can show that there is an overwhelming demand for change.

A report by Tearfund, Fauna & Flora International (FFI), WasteAid and The Institute of Development Studies (IDS), with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough, Vice President, Fauna & Flora International.