India becomes the global host of 2018 World Environment Day on June 5, 2018.
Plastic Pollution Upshots:
- The world uses 500 billion plastic bags each year.
- Approximately eight million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, which is equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute.
- It has been estimated that we have produced more plastic in the last decade as compared n the whole last century.
- 50 percent of the plastic we use is single-use or disposable.
- Database on Plastic waste says that 1 million plastic bottles are bought every minute.
- 10% of all of the waste we generate is composed of plastic waste.
- Central Pollution Control Board has estimated the generation of 15,342 tonnes of plastic waste in the country, out of which, 9,205 tonnes were reported to be recycled and leaving 6,137 tonnes uncollected and littered.
“Beat Plastic Pollution”, has been announced as the theme for World Environment Day 2018, and this theme emphasises the governments, industry, communities, and individuals to unite and explore sustainable alternatives and urgently reduce the production and excessive use of one time use of plastic which is polluting our oceans and is damaging marine life and threatening human health.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, says “If each and every one of us does at least one green good deed daily towards our Green Social Responsibility, there will be billions of green good deeds daily on the planet.”
Our organization, URWISH is committed towards organizing and promoting the World Environment Day celebrations through a series of engaging activities and events generating strong public awareness and participation.
Working towards a sustainable future and a cleaner air to breathe one must abide by the following conclusive remarks:
- Our community should take initiatives to augment inadequate resources for solid waste management of municipal bodies.
- Individual as well as Community participation in Solid Waste Management is the key to sustain a project related to management of solid waste.
- The people should be educated to realize the importance of source segregation at generation point as biodegradables, reusable and recyclable material for proper waste management and disposal.
- Viable decentralized composting plants should be installed in small residential communities/ enclaves to reduce the load on Local Bodies’ for collection and transportation of Wastes
- For large cities, zone-wise decentralized composting units for disposal should be setup.
- Characterization and segregation of waste at collection and also at disposal point should be made and be available in public domain.
- Government stakeholders should take initiative to encourage Universities, technical Institution to take up waste management in its curriculum. Thereby most part of India would be covered and community/location-specific appropriate solutions for waste management can be developed. It can also help to select suitable waste-to-energy technologies for particular regions to curb the issue of environmental concern.
- The waste should be treated as resource and proper recycling sector/industries be developed to recycle non-biodegradable recyclable component from the waste thereby generating employment to rag-pickers and absorb them in mainstream.
- Appropriate technological Solution To Pollution should be adopted to achieve the goal to Beat The Plastic pollution.