Waste

Many people think zero waste is just about reducing waste but it’s actually much more than that. It’s about our health, the climate and about taking care of the planet. The free online course to learn about the real solutions to plastic pollution.

This report explores the plastic problem in Africa and examines the laws, policies and multilateral agreements put in place to govern waste management and trade.It also showcases examples of traditional practices made of natural materials widely used across the African continent as alternatives to plastic.

This report outlines the significant burdens that plastic pollution imposes on state and municipal systems, which bear the financial, environmental, and health costs of managing these effects. It also provides a comprehensive roadmap for legal professionals and government officials to initiate litigation against those responsible for the proliferation of plastic waste.

The pollution resulting from rampant overproduction of virgin plastics is irreversible, directly undermines our health, drives biodiversity loss, exacerbates climate change and risks generating large-scale harmful environmental changes. As the plastics pollution crisis continues to grow, so does the case for a global plastics treaty that tackles the issue head-on and seeks to reduce the production of virgin plastics.

Evidence of banned toxic flame-retardants, hazardous chemicals from electronic waste that are known to disrupt thyroid function and cause neurological and attention deficits in children, are recycled into new plastic consumer products across Europe.

Plastic Waste Poisons Indonesia's Food Chain reports on the high levels of dioxins being dumped into the environment and food networks as a result of plastic incineration — plastics which are being imported along with waste papers into Indonesia and other countries. Measured levels of dioxin in eggs rivals some of the worst polluted areas in human history.

This synthesis of data on toxic chemical ocean pollution, including hazardous pesticides, pharmaceuticals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) like PCBs, plastics, microplastics, and heavy metals, exposes their sweeping impacts on marine and human life.

The case studies reveal that countries are unable to handle large volumes of diverse plastics waste streams safely, and the reality that, without regulations requiring plastic ingredients to be labeled, countries are blindly allowing known toxic chemicals onto their markets in plastic products.

The report reveals how Australia’s new waste policies are driving massive investment in plastic waste-to-fuel processing, and that the country’s exports are threatening waste management in ASEAN countries. This is despite the country announcing it would stop exporting unprocessed wastes in 2020, after China and other Southeast Asian countries banned plastic waste imports.

A recent analysis found that the overall plastic trade is more than 40% higher than previous estimates, and even this number fails to reflect the trade of plastics and wastes in textiles, rubber, plastic contamination of paper bales, and other sources. The real amount of plastics and plastic wastes, and of toxic chemicals contained in plastics and wastes that move globally via trade is likely to be even higher.