World Environment Day 2025 comes exactly two months before approximately 200 world leaders meet in Switzerland to continue negotiating a global treaty to end plastic pollution. The process to initiate a treaty began in March 2022, this was to set rules on how plastic is made, used and thrown away - and how the treaty will be paid for.
Plastic, from creation to disposal, contributes to climate change and environmental degradation, improper disposal contaminates soil, water sources, and harms habitats and ecosystems. It is estimated that 25 billion plastic items are purchased across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland each year and that an estimated 6.5 billion of these single-use drinks bottles and cans per year go to waste rather than being recycled, that accounts for 17 million each day. (1)
Plastic pollution also remains a huge problem for our marine environment, as the durability that makes plastic so useful, means it does not break down easily in nature and instead, it breaks down into tiny pieces called ‘microplastics’ which enter our food chains, harming ecosystems and biodiversity.
In the UK, the latest annual Marine Conservation Society (MCS) Beach Clean Report 2024 (2) published that all top five items found on beaches across the UK and Channel Islands were made of plastic. The amount of plastic found on beaches increased by 9.5%, between 2023 and 2024, with an average 127 items recorded per 100m. Not only that, 160,364 single-use plastic items were found on beaches, highlighting that more that needs to be done to turn the tide on plastic and move away from our throwaway society to a circular economy where everything is designed to be reused, remade and repaired. This followed the UK Government finally introducing a ban on single-use plastic plates, trays, cutlery and other ‘on the go’ items in England, in October 2023.
In October 2027, the government are set to introduce a long-awaited deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks containers, across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland in order to help tackle encourage us all to recycle our drinks containers. This follows successful examples of DRS in countries like Germany, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland, the average return rate for European countries with a scheme is 87%, according to global eNGO Reloop, with Germany showing the best results at 98%. (3)
Sources:
- Shehab Choudhury, 31 January 2025, DEFRA Introducing the deposit return scheme for drinks containers – Environment
- The Marine Conservation Society, 2024 State of our beaches Beachwatch report 2024, Beachwatch 2024 Results | Marine Conservation Society
- Reloop Platform, Global Deposit Book 2024 Global Deposit Book - Reloop Platform