The global plastic limit order is finally coming

Since the 1940s, plastics have become the fourth largest type of new basic materials after steel, wood and cement due to their lightness, low cost and strong plasticity. A large amount of plastic is produced every year in the world for industry and life. This convenient disposable product is discarded in large quantities after use. The "white pollution" caused by the refractory characteristics has caused huge pressure on the ecological environment.

White pollution has also become one of the important environmental problems other than global warming caused by greenhouse gases. The distinctive feature of white pollution is that it is difficult to degrade. Plastics invented 100 years ago will take at least 300 years to be degraded. When you think about it, people spend their brainpower creating objects that only take tens of minutes at most, but they spend a lot of energy to deal with the follow-up matters. Either way, it's a bit of a loss.

The United Nations Environment Assembly has set agenda meetings for many times to discuss and formulate detailed rules to solve this white cancer that is common to the world. Recently, the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly announced the formulation of a global treaty to legislate to end plastic pollution. Heads of state, environment ministers and other representatives from 175 countries endorsed the resolution.

The development of the treatment and solution of white pollution has always been faltering and difficult. For the first time, the United Nations uses international laws to restrain, which will bring new variables and development space to the process of global plastic pollution control.

There is no pure land in the world, and microplastics participate in the circulatory system of life

Our perception of white pollution is somewhat superficial. But white pollution is passing microplastics to humans bit by bit through the food chain in a way similar to heavy metal pollution. Although some plastics seem to be degraded, the degraded plastics are not completely decomposed, but become small pieces of broken particles, mixed between the soil and gravel, and after being ingested by the underlying organisms, gradually invade the organisms. in the organization.

Plastic pollution has become one of the environmental pollution problems worthy of attention on a global scale. Microplastic debris is present in nearly every ecosystem, from Arctic snow, to Mount Everest to its summit, to the ocean floor to the depths.

In the ocean, plastic products are invading the health of marine life, and marine mammals and seabirds are threatened by plastic. We often see in the news that turtles and whales take the initiative to find humans to untie the plastic wrapped around them. A large amount of white garbage has also been found in the stomachs of some marine creatures. Sea turtles that feed on jellyfish, unable to tell the difference between the two, will swallow floating plastic bags as jellyfish; all kinds of plastic debris floating on the shoreline will be eaten by seabirds as delicious food.

Even in the remote Antarctic, with the movement of ocean currents, it is not immune to the destruction of the environment by plastic. Research investigations show that scientists have observed floating or stranded plastic debris in Antarctica as early as the 1980s. In the past two years, mesoplastic fragments (1–10 mm) and microplastic fragments (1–1000 microns) have been found in surface water and sediments north of 60°S latitude.

In the body of the Antarctic terrestrial Collembola, scientists also found traces of polyethylene fragments, which also means that the last piece of pure land on the earth is also infiltrated by plastic.

Most plastics cannot be excreted and occupy the stomach space. The harmful substances in plastics not only erode the life and health of animals, but also affect the breeding of the next generation. In the presence of microplastics, the smallest marine organisms, zooplankton, grow more slowly and reproduce less successfully: the animals have smaller eggs and are less likely to hatch, studies have shown.

The plastic accumulated in these organisms will be passed down the food chain layer by layer, jeopardizing the development of the entire biological system. For example, the microplastics in the bottom organism Collembola in Antarctica are likely to flow to larger animals such as penguins and seals through the food chain. Microplastics have penetrated deeply into the soil food web and become part of the soil biogeochemical cycle.

This situation also made it impossible for scientists to ignore it. They turned their attention from the marine ecosystem to the terrestrial system, and started quantitative research on microplastics, focusing on the impact of plastic pollution on the entire ecosystem.

With the deepening of white pollution, people are paying more and more attention to the harm of plastic, and the government is paying more and more attention to the disposal of plastic waste. At the legislative level, it has begun to clear all obstacles and increase punishment. Scientists put more energy into the continuous research and development of plastic degradation technology.

Strict prohibition: from plastic restriction to plastic ban

According to statistics from the International Energy Agency (IEA), in the past five years, more than 60 countries have implemented bans or taxes on single-use plastics, and major economies such as the European Union, the United States and China have even begun to upgrade the "plastic restriction order" to "Plastic Ban". Behind the promulgation of the international legislative "plastic limit order" is the alarm of plastic pollution.

UNEP released a report last year saying that between 1950 and 2017, about 9.2 billion tons of plastics were produced globally, of which the recycling rate of plastics was less than 10%, and about 7 billion tons became plastic waste. The American "Science Advances" magazine warned that in 2050, there will be more than 13 billion tons of plastic waste on the earth, and the blue planet may become a "white planet".

The white planet is not only filled with white garbage, but more importantly, white plastics are transmitted through the food chain in the biological tissues, which seriously affects the growth and reproduction of organisms. If measures are not taken immediately, the harm of plastic pollution will enter an irreversible situation. The introduction of legally binding and binding regulations to end plastic pollution has become necessary to curb the deterioration of the situation.

The adoption of the "Resolution on Ending Plastic Pollution (Draft)" at the Fifth United Nations Environment Assembly is the progress of an important multilateral environmental agreement since the Paris Agreement, and it is also an agreement on insurance consensus for future generations. Since then, the global plastic restriction order has been legally bound, and multiple countries must face it together. In China, the white environmental protection policy is also constantly exerting force, from the plastic restriction order to the plastic ban order, and a national-local multi-level plastic ban policy system has been formed. On February 23 this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment once again emphasized that it will actively strengthen the control of plastic pollution. The next step will be to implement the legal requirements for plastic pollution control, and promote the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution" and the "14th Five-Year Plan" for Plastic Pollution Control Action Plan" and other effective implementation, accurate, scientific and legal control of plastic pollution.