Skip to main content

Global Plastics Treaty

Why It Matters Plastic pollution has reached even the most remote corners of the planet, from the Mariana Trench to Mount Everest. 460 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually.Only 9% is recycled; the rest leaks into the environment.By 2060, plastic waste is projected to triple, without intervention.

 A letter adapted from #BreakFreeFromPlastic’s campaign regarding the UN negotiations regarding a Global Plastics Treaty taking place in Geneva right now. 

Dear Minister Dabrusin
CC Leader of the Green Party, interim NDP leader, interim Conservative leader, local MP

This is urgent. Manitoba was under the highest air quality advisory yesterday after a summer of smog and cancelled activities. This isn’t just seasonal forest fires or silly accusations of arson. Drought and extreme heat are driving these wild fires – and those are caused by climate change, which in turn is caused by massive industrial extraction of fossil fuels. 

Plastic is driving climate change and polluting oceans, rivers, soil, air, impacting humans and other beings. Plastic is poisoning our communities, our homes, and our bodies.

Citizens should and must make better choices regarding how they manage the plastic that comes through their hands but we desperately need you politicians to make legislation that will reduce how much plastic that is. I can try to use less plastic but if it's impossible to buy products that I need without them being encased in layers of plastic, that’s your problem to fix, not mine. 

Here, I add my voice to the many – citizens, scientists, businesses – who are calling for ambitious and urgent action to address this threat. We have to stop producing so much plastic; it is the only way to end the impact of plastics on the environment and human health.

I call on your leadership to work towards the adoption of a strong legally binding Global Plastics Treaty and create a future free from plastic pollution, where our health and planet flourish, now and for generations to come.

*Crossposted to KFR 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Broken people...

After reflecting with one coworker on how often churches in all their forms really mess up and hurt a whole bunch of people in the process -- and how "we gotta do better" -- I stumbled into another conversation with a coworker which highlighted our brokenness, and I suddenly realized what was wrong with my take in the first. I wanted the church to be better at fixing our mistakes, or better yet, at not making them in the first place. But maybe this "fix-it" attitude is partly the reason we keep blowing it again and again! My friend recollected an experience when a church community was in a terrible place: compounded mistakes, hurts, and frustrations had blown up, spewing pain all over all parties. (I'm sure anyone with a long history in the church can think of one, if not several, such occasions in their past.) A new Christian who observed all these goings on responded in an unexpected way. Instead of "you people are a bunch of screw-ups! How could this pos...
5 comments
Read more

Bigger dreams for a livable city

A message to a mayoral candidate Just a few thoughts arising from the BW ride with the ED.  1) That bridge connecting Edmonton and Scott across the Assiniboine would be nice, of course. But we don't have the money to even build it, much less to build all the other bridges that would be desired.  The reason that a downtown AT bridge is so greatly desired is because the city *somehow* failed to put a bike lane on the Osborne Bridge when they rehabbed it in 2010ish, despite the fact that is was in *all the plans*.  Meanwhile there *are* three bridges downtown. Yes, they all have their challenges for cyclists, but there *are* three bridges.  Whereas Maryland to Omand's Creek is a *very* long stretch with *no bridges whatsoever* (except that sewage bridge at Aubrey taunting every pedestrian or cyclist who has to bike kms out of their way to connect from Cambridge to Sherburn. Poop can cross here but humans cannot.).  Since we do not have all the money in the world to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deep breaths, just relax

I am immensely relieved to have my visa application in the mail...except I won't be free of trepidation until I have my passport back, visa approved. Sending my visa makes me realize it's actually going to happen -- sooner rather than later. Just one more day of work at the newspaper, 2 1/2 more shifts at the bookstore. Training the new guy today went well for me; I hope it went well for him as well! Thankfully, I have news that I will not be wandering around Douala by myself upon my arrival in Cameroon. (Okay, not that that was going to be the case, but it sounds more dramatic.) The original plan was that I'd meet Dan and Lisa at Charles de Gaulle and continue with them from there in on. Just the way I like it -- being "adventurous" within the safe parameters of responsible and experienced oversight. However, the U.S. government got in the way of those plans with delay after delay with Joshua's paperwork. To say I was worried about arriving in Douala all alo...
5 comments
Read more