More than 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide each year, 200 million tons of plastic waste are landfilled, incinerated or flow into soil and water bodies, more than 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, and tens of thousands of microplastics enter the human body. The excessive use and improper disposal of plastics are seriously harming the earth's ecological environment and human health.
At present, plastic pollution has become the second largest environmental focus issue in the world after climate change. Plastic pollution is not only reflected in the harm of plastic waste to the ecological environment, but also in its greenhouse gas emissions. Data show that more than 90% of the world's plastic raw materials come from fossil fuels such as petroleum. Plastics are accompanied by a large amount of carbon emissions during production and disposal, and are one of the fastest growing industries in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
Faced with the increasing challenge of plastic pollution, the world is paying more and more attention to plastic governance. To this end, the themes of World Environment Day in 2023 and this year's World Earth Day are both related to plastic reduction. However, the "global fight against plastic" not only needs to reduce the use of plastics, but also promote the green and low-carbon development of the plastics industry, and minimize the impact of plastics on the environment and climate change while ensuring the reasonable use of consumer plastics by humans.
