Plastics: Even If We Don't Make Them, They Come To Us!

Plastics are, of course, another 'mixed blessing', brought to us by 'Big Oil'. Globally, some 400 million tonnes of plastics are produced each year. Much of this is incinerated; finishes up in landfill or sets sail on the oceans. A UN meeting in Ottawa (Canada) hopes to get nations to 'come together' to agree a treaty to reduce the soaring levels of plastic waste. Large plastic waste is unsightly (and can be dangerous to some other living organisms) but microplastics are probably a greater concern. Microplastics are infiltrating themselves into all living animals, including humans. It will be interesting to see if an effective treaty is forthcoming. As with the case of 'greenhouse gas' emissions, the major producers of plastics, make their mess available to the rest of the world. Much of that mess impacts on countries that, themselves, produce no plastics (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/23/world-must-come-together-to-tackle-plastic-pollution-says-chair-of-un-talks). A very graphic illustration of the problem is the observation that the Marine iguanas of Galapagos are living on rafts of plastic waste (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/23/currents-bring-life-and-plastics-animals-of-galapagos-live-amid-mounds-of-waste). The remote Galapagos islands (of Charles Darwin fame) are volcanic peaks in the Pacific Ocean. They are thousands of miles away from any site of plastics manufacture. Although they are visited by 'ecotourists', such folk are unlikely to discard their plastic waste locally. Most of that plastic must, consequently, arrive on ocean currents.