According to the OECD, without urgent action, we’re heading towards a 617-million-tonne plastic waste crisis.
To put that in context, one of the Great Pyramids of Giza is estimated to weigh 5,750,000 tonnes.
So doing nothing means 107 Great Plastic Waste Pyramids coming your way.
The one thing that can stop this disaster: a handful of coins paid by plastic producers at the start of the plastic lifecycle.
You see, the OECD has crunched the numbers and figured out that to address this plastic waste crisis we have to do more than just look at what happens to plastic at the very end of its life. We actually have to look at what we can do at the very beginning.
And what we can do at the very beginning is impose a very small fee on the production of plastic polymers. This fee would be paid by the very companies who profit from the plastic chemicals harming your children and the plastic pollution ruining our environment. This fee is known as the Polymer Premium.
We and our key partners have crunched the numbers and found that it would only be between US$0.06-$0.08 cents a kilo.
Now, we don’t want to blame ALL of the plastic waste problem on these companies, we just want them to be responsible for their fair share of this crisis. Plus 6-8 cents per kilo turns into something extraordinary.
For just 6-8 cents, you’d be hard-pressed to buy a single tea bag at your local grocery store. But it can help 175 countries around the world realise their ambition to deliver on a comprehensive global plastics treaty that protects the health of their citizens and environment.
Plastic pollution doesn’t just stop at the border.
So, if we only protect our own backyard, our animals are still going to be harmed by plastic pollution flowing in from other countries and our health will continue to suffer from toxic plastic chemicals in the environment.
Six to eight cents to avoid a 617,000,000 tonne plastic waste disaster.
That seems like a pretty fair price to us.
