Opinion: More should be done to reduce plastic consumption

Plastic pollution refers to the accumulation in the environment of synthetic plastic products to the point where they create problems for wildlife and their habitats, as well as for human consumption.1 It is caused by many factors. One of which contributes to plastic pollution greatly but is not widely seen as an issue; the production of products. In 2019, Japan produced approximately 5.74 million tons of plastic products, a jump from around 5.71 million tons in 2012.2 Many different products require different amounts of plastic for the product to be made, whether it be directly in the product or used in the making of the product. However, the great amount of plastic used to produce and manufacture products is not acknowledged by many.

The delegate of Australia had said that we should try looking at solving plastic pollution from two perspectives: countries should try to reduce plastic products and plastic waste from the processing and/or manufacturing of products. An idea Australia had come up with was for food delivery services to use small semi-plastic containers and gradually start using alternative materials instead of the normal plastic containers. The delegate of Australia had also answered that food delivery services are more widespread in high income countries and emerging economies when asked by the delegate of Egypt on how low income countries could afford the containers. The delegate of Russia had agreed with Australia while the delegate of Pakistan mentioned that there would still be an issue as some developing countries have a large amount of plastic waste. In our opinion, the idea that the delegate of Australia had proposed was creative and on the right track, however we do agree with the delegate of Pakistan. While developed countries would have less plastic waste, the situation in developing countries would remain unchanged. Though there is quite a bit of potential in the proposal, more should be done to help developing countries.

A possible solution to this issue is the imposition of taxes for when large amounts of plastic are bought. This way, businesses would not want to waste money on buying plastic as it would affect their business, encouraging them to think of alternative solutions. There are businesses; notoriously the e-commerce giant, Amazon3; that waste a lot of plastic on overpackaging. Imposing taxes would limit the amount of plastic those businesses have to package their products. It forces businesses to be more creative when producing and manufacturing products to think of alternative solutions or alternative materials to use. Moreover, this proposal could be implemented in both developed and less-developed countries, allowing for a more holistic approach to tackling plastic pollution.

To conclude, producing products plays a great part in plastic pollution. The delegate of Australia’s proposal was not the best but had the concept of reducing plastic. However, we feel that we should take it one step further and impose taxes on buying large amounts of plastic. In the end, there is no Planet B; we need to treat plastic pollution as the environmental emergency that it is.

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1 Moore, Charles. “Plastic pollution”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Oct. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic-pollution . Accessed 9 June 2021.

2 Klein, Catharina. “Plastic industry in Japan - statistics & facts”. Statista, 7 May 2021, https://www.statista.com/topics/7877/plastic-industry-in-japan/#topicHeader__wrapper . Accessed 9 June 2021.

3 Spolarich, Gillian. “Amazon’s Big Role in Ocean Plastic Pollution”. Oceana, 15 Dec. 2020, https://oceana.org/press-center/press-releases/amazon’s-big-role-ocean-plastic-pollution . Accessed 9 June 2021.