EU plans to ban food imports from deforested areas

Yahoo – AFP, November 17, 2021 

Deforestation in regions like the Amazon has Europeans worried (AFP/
CARL DE SOUZA)

The EU plans to bar food and wood imports from deforested areas, according to a proposal unveiled Wednesday aimed at using its trade power to drive sustainability. 

The draft law, which Brussels wants to turn into binding rules for all 27 European Union nations, would require companies show their soy, beef, palm oil, cocoa, coffee and wood products are certified "deforestation-free". 

It follows an international pledge made at the COP26 summit last week to end deforestation by 2030. 

"This proposal is a truly ground-breaking one," the EU commissioner for climate action policy, Virginijus Sinkevicius, told a media conference. 

"It targets not just illegal deforestation but also deforestation driven by agricultural expansion," he said. 

Under the EU plan, two criteria would have to be met: that the commodities are produced in accordance with the origin country's laws; and that they were not produced on land deforested or degraded since the beginning of 2021. 

Imports from higher-risk countries would be subject to tighter checks. 

The European Commission did not say when it hoped to have the new legislation adopted. 

The rules could impact countries such as Brazil, where European disquiet at razing of the Amazon rainforest by cattle farmers is holding up implementation of an EU-Mercosur trade deal. 

Clearing of the Amazon hit a new record last month, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. 

The environmental protection group WWF says the huge EU market is responsible for 16 percent of global deforestation linked to international trade. 

It and other NGOs welcome the EU plan as a first step, but say it does not go far enough. Greenpeace says it does not address deforestation from other commodities such as rubber and maize, or from pig and poultry farming. 

Waste and soil 

Other sustainability proposals presented alongside the anti-deforestation rules were on waste management and improving the health of soils. 

"These initiatives show that the European Union is serious about the green transition and just keeps moving forward with it," said the Commission vice president in charge of overseeing the EU's Green Deal, Frans Timmermans. 

On waste, the Commission wants to see "circular economy" principles attached to the way it sends abroad its millions of tonnes of discarded metals, cardboard, plastic, textiles and other detritus. 

Waste exports to non-OECD countries would be restricted and allowed only if those destinations agree and were able to handle them sustainably. Currently the two top destinations for EU waste in that category are Turkey and India. 

Shipments to OECD countries would be monitored and suspended if grave environmental problems arose. Those destinations include Britain, Switzerland and Norway. 

The soil strategy aims for a mix of voluntary and mandatory measures to increase soil carbon in farmland and fight desertification, to get soil ecosystems healthy by 2050.

Dutch introduce 15 cent deposits on small plastic drinks bottles from 2021

DutchNews, April 25, 2020 

Photo: Odi Busman

The Netherlands is to introduce a 15 cent deposit system on all plastic bottles smaller than one litre, junior environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven announced on Friday evening. 

The expansion of the current deposit system will come into effect in July 2021 and is being introduced because efforts to reduce the amount of small plastic bottles in litter have not worked, the minister said.

Van Veldhoven told the drinks industry at the beginning of 2018 she would expand the deposit scheme unless the amount of small plastic bottles included in litter was reduced by between 70% and 90%. Some 100 million of the 900 million small bottles sold every year in the Netherlands still end up being dumped. 

Cans 

Van Veldhoven said the same incentive is now being applied to drinks in cans. If the number of cans dumped as litter is not reduced by between 70% and 90%, the government will also introduce a deposit on canned drinks in 2022, the minister said. 

The Netherlands has been debating changing the deposit system, which currently applies to large plastic bottles and some glass bottles, for years. 

In 2015, the Dutch government tore up an agreement with the packaging industry to end the current system of deposits on plastic bottles. 

The industry argued there would be major cost advantages if deposits were scrapped but the cost savings, in a report commissioned by the industry, were later shown to be exaggerated.

Banned! New York sends plastic bags packing

Yahoo – AFP, Peter HUTCHISON, February 29, 2020

A shopper with groceries in plastic bags walks in New York's Upper East Side
neighborhood on February 28, 2020, ahead of the statewide ban on plastic
bags (AFP Photo/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

New York (AFP) - Consumerist mecca New York targets its throwaway culture this weekend with a ban on single-use plastic bags that has been years in the making and is still rare in America.

New Yorkers like to see themselves at the forefront of efforts to save the environment but are used to receiving groceries in free plastic bags, often doubled up to ensure sturdiness.

On Sunday, that will change when New York becomes only the third US state to outlaw the non-biodegradable sacks blamed for choking rivers, littering neighborhoods and suffocating wildlife.

Environmental activists welcome the new law but caution that exemptions will weaken its effect, while some small businesses worry the ban might negatively impact their profits.

At the Westside Market in Manhattan, 66-year-old Janice Vrana, who says she has been shopping with a reusable cloth bag for a decade, is delighted "pervasive" plastic sacks are being banished.

"You could drive over them 500 times with a Mack Truck and they probably wouldn't break down. Whatever little I can do, I do," she told AFP.

Janine Franciosa, a 38-year-old who works in advertising, said it is great people are becoming more aware of how their "everyday purchases are affecting the environment."

But not everyone is happy.

Westside Market manager Ian Joskowitz, 52, told AFP some customers were "upset" because they use free plastic bags as garbage bags.

California and Oregon have statewide bans of plastic bags while Hawaii has a de 

facto ban. Four other states have bans starting soon (AFP Photo/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

Fines

New York uses some 23 billion plastic bags every year, according to the state government.

About 85 percent are thrown away, ending up in landfills, and on streets and beaches, it says.

After several failed attempts, lawmakers finally approved the ban in April 2019.

It bars all retailers who pay state taxes -- such as department stores, supermarkets, neighborhood corner stores and gas stations -- from providing plastic bags to customers.

Violators can expect fines of up to $500, although officials have said they will give stores time to adapt to the new rules.

The ban will "protect our natural resources for future generations," said Governor Andrew Cuomo when he announced the legislation last year.

The law allows New York city and counties to levy a five-cent tax on paper bags, with part of the resulting revenue going to an environmental protection fund.

Kate Kurera, deputy director of Environmental Advocates of New York, says the ban will cause "a tremendous reduction" in plastic waste pollution.

She laments, however, that food takeouts, beloved by the city's 8.6 million inhabitants, are exempt.

Other exemptions include bags for prescription drugs, plastic wrapping for newspapers delivered to subscribers, and bags used solely for non-prepackaged food such as meat and fish.

Kurera wishes the government would make the paper bag fee mandatory to force customers to bring their own carriers, noting that producing paper bags is intensive in terms of oil, fossil fuels and trees used.

A shopper with groceries in plastic bags walks in New York's Upper East Side 

neighborhood on February 28, 2020, ahead of the statewide ban on plastic bags

(AFP Photo/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

'Live with it!'

"Ideally neither bag is preferable," she told AFP. "Behavior is slower to change when people know they can get a free paper bag."

Greg Biryla, New York state director at the National Federation of Independent Business, says alternatives can cost up to seven times more than plastic bags.

"They are proportionally more burdensome on small businesses who aren't ordering in as big a quantity as their big business counterparts," he told AFP.

California and Oregon have statewide bans of plastic bags while Hawaii has a de facto ban.

Four other states have bans starting soon while Texas has prevented its cities from outlawing plastic bags.

New York is viewed as one of the most innovative cities in the world, but on the issue of plastic it has some catching up to do internationally.

Ubiquitous across the Big Apple are single-use plastic utensils such as cutlery, straws and stirrers, which European Union countries have voted to outlaw by next year.

New York's older residents note that plastic bags only became available in US grocery stores in 1979, signaling how quickly habits can change.

"When I was growing up we brought our own bags," shopper Denise Shaleaon told AFP, adding of the ban: "The New Yorker will have to live with it!"

Netherlands in EU top three for recycling, says circular economy report

DutchNews, February 21, 2020

Plastic waste awaiting collection in Amstelveen. Photo: DutchNews.nl

The Netherlands is in Europe’s top three for recycling, according to the latest figures published by the Dutch statistics office. 

A report on the ‘circular economy in the Netherlands’ – looking at the extent to which the country uses raw materials and recycles what it uses – shows that it is apparently improving. 

In 2018 the country consumed around 20% less in materials than in 2000 – including goods that are used in production. On average, each resident used 10,000 kilos of materials in 2018 – however another 21,500 kilos per head were produced, intended for export. 

The report says that the Netherlands’ material use ‘footprint’ is relatively low, partly because it is small and densely populated so less material is needed for infrastructure such as roads. 

The Dutch produce more rubbish per head than the European norm, at 2,500 kilos in 2016, compared with an average 1,800 kilos – partly due to packaging from goods that are imported and then exported, according to the report. 

However, it is third for recycling rates, after Luxemburg and Belgium – sending 1,698kg of rubbish for reuse per head in 2016, the most recent year for which there are comparative figures. 

The government is aiming to build a ‘completely’ circular economy by 2050, in which material is used sparingly, products are designed with reuse in mind and everything possible is recycled.

Big firm products top worst plastic litter list: report

RTL –AFP, 23 October 2019

The coalition's volunteers collected nearly half a million pieces of plastic
waste during a coordinated 'World Clean Up Day' / (AFP)

Tens of thousands of pieces of plastic littering the planet come from just a handful of multinational corporations, an environmental pressure group said Wednesday.

Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo were named by Break Free from Plastics, a global coalition of individuals and environmental organisations, who warned the companies largely avoid cleanup responsibility.

The coalition's volunteers collected nearly half a million pieces of plastic waste during a coordinated "World Clean Up Day" in 51 countries a month ago, of which 43 percent were marked with a clear consumer brand.

For the second year in a row, it said, Coca-Cola came out on top, with 11,732 pieces of plastic collected from 37 countries across four continents -- more than the next three top global polluters combined.

"Many of them have made commitments that they claim will make their products more sustainable, but largely protect the outdated throwaway business model that got us into this mess in the first place," said the report, released in Manila.

As nations, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka dump the most plastic into the oceans, but "the real drivers of much of this plastic pollution in Asia are actually multinational corporations headquartered in Europe and the United States", it said.

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle were responsible for the most pieces of plastic collected, according to the report.

Others in the top 10 polluters include Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, Philip Morris and Perfetti Van Mille, it added.

Single-serve sachets

While global consumer brands now acknowledge their role in perpetuating the crisis, the report said they "have been equally aggressive in promoting false solutions to address the problem".

Plastic waste survey / AFP

Promoting recycling is their way of shifting responsibility to consumers, it said.

Just nine percent of all plastic produced since the 1950s has actually been recycled, the report said.

The report deems single-serve multilayered sachets, common in Southeast Asia and aimed at low-income families that cannot afford bigger volumes of consumer products, as "the most damaging type of plastic packaging".

Coca-Cola's promotion of a single-use bottle using plastic collected from the oceans, as well as PepsiCo's efforts to promote recycling, "do not get to the heart of the problem and all but guarantee the plastic pollution crisis will grow worse".

Nestle sells over a billion products a day in single-use packaging "but has no clear plans for reducing the total amount" it puts into the world, the report alleged.

The firm said it was working towards solutions "to make reports like this a thing of the past".

"As the world's largest food and beverage company, we know we have an important role to play in shaping sustainable solutions to tackle the issue of plastics waste," a Nestle spokesperson told AFP in a statement.

"It is completely unacceptable for this (plastic) packaging to end up as litter in the environment and we are working hard to make all of our packaging either recyclable or reusable by 2025."

The report said companies should veer away from promoting "false solutions" -- such as recycling and so-called "bioplastics" -- and instead transition from a throwaway economy.

All the companies named have made public commitments to reduce plastic waste and increase recycling.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo -- like Nestle -- have pledged to make their packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. The beverage giants have also pulled out of a US lobbying organisation that represents the plastics industry.

"Changing the way society makes, uses, and disposes of packaging is a complex challenge and we're playing our part," a PepsiCo spokesperson told AFP.

"We want to help build a system where plastic packaging never becomes waste."

The Coca-Cola Company said it was working to help stop plastic waste entering the seas, describing it as a "critical global issue".

"Any time our packaging ends up in our oceans -- or anywhere that it doesn't belong -- is unacceptable to us," the firm said in a statement.

Break Free from Plastics counts 6,118 individuals and 1,475 organisations around the world as its members, including Greenpeace.

Unilever to halve use of new plastic

Yahoo – AFP, Charlotte VAN OUWERKERK, October 7, 2019

Shampoo could be sold in bars, eliminating the need for plastic bottles (AFP
Photo/LIU JIN)

The Hague (AFP) - Anglo-Dutch commercial giant Unilever said Monday it will cut its use of new plastic by half by 2025, admitting the move was partly to appeal to young, more environmentally-conscious customers

The firm, which owns brands including Dove soap, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and Marmite, would cut annual use from the current 700,000 tonnes of a year to no more than 350,000 tonnes.

The move comes as multinational firms face growing pressure to cut the use of plastics which are polluting both land and sea.

"Plastic has its place, but that place is not in the environment. We can only eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the plastic cycle," Unilever chief executive Alan Jope said in a statement.

But Jope told the BBC that the company -- whose 400 brands also include Knorr, Lipton tea and Magnum ice creams -- was also trying to remain "relevant".

"We do believe in trying to remain relevant for younger groups of consumers, and we know that millennials and Gen-Zennials, the next wave, really care about purpose and sustainability, and the conduct of the companies and the brands that they're buying," he told the broadcaster.

Of the 350,000 tonnes of "virgin plastic" Unilever will cut, it said 100,000 tonnes will come from an outright reduction in the use of plastic packaging, for example by making reusable or refillable packs, using alternative packaging or "naked products" that use none at all.

The other 250,000 tonnes of the reduction will come from using recycled plastics.

The firm said it would also "help collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells".

'Greenwashing' alert

Unilever said it was the "first major global consumer goods company to commit to an absolute plastics reduction".

Alternative methods it has tried recently include shampoo bars, refillable toothpaste tablets, cardboard deodorant sticks and bamboo toothbrushes.

The world produces more than 300 million tonnes of plastics annually, the UN says, with much of it ending up in the oceans.

Companies are coming under increasing pressure to act.

In September, 19 companies including Unilever, Nestle, Google and L’Oreal announced a "coalition" to protect biodiversity at the UN climate summit in New York.

Swiss group Nestle has made a similar pledge to the one by Unilever, saying that it will make all of its packaging reusable or recyclable, and raising to 35 percent the proportion of its plastic bottles that is made of recycled material.

US coffee giant Starbucks is meanwhile planning to ban plastic straws by 2020 while Walt Disney Co. said it would replace small plastic shampoo bottles at its resorts and many British supermarkets have drastically cut down plastic bag use.

There was also a pledge at this summer's G20 in Osaka to tackle marine plastics pollution, although environmentalists attacked it for being vague on detail.

"There is a general awakening of conscience among consumers which is alerting both governments and producers," Gregory Bressolles, professor of marketing at Kedge Business School in France, told AFP.

However he warned against "attempts at greenwashing" by businesses.

"Greenwashing" is a term used to critics to describe efforts by companies to promote often spurious environmental measures for commercial gain.

Related Articles:

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Unilever Leads Sustainability Rankings

Asian countries turning back wealthy world's waste

Yahoo – AFP, July 30, 2019

This handout photo from the Cambodian Ministry of Environment shows workers
opening a container loaded with plastic waste after the shipment arrived at
Sihanoukville port in July. Cambodia will return about 1,600 tonnes of plastic
waste to the US and Canada. (AFP Photo/Handout)

Paris (AFP) - Several Southeast Asian countries, sick of being the wealthy world's rubbish dump, have in recent weeks turned back container-loads of waste from foreign shores.

It comes after China last year stopped accepting the world's used plastic, having previously been the biggest market for recyclables.

After Indonesia on Tuesday announced it had sent back illegally imported garbage from France and Hong Kong, here is a roundup.

China

On January 1, 2018, China closed its doors to almost all foreign plastic waste, as well as many other recyclables, in a push to protect its environment and air quality.

For many years China had received the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, processing much of it into a higher quality material that could be used by manufacturers.

Beijing's decision forced developed countries to find new destinations for plastics that are either "of poor quality and value" or not recyclable, the non-governmental group Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) said.

It led to enormous quantities of waste being redirected to Southeast Asia, where recycling capacities are more limited.

Malaysia

In late May Malaysia said 450 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste would be shipped back to where it came from -- Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The country however does allow the import of homogenous and clean waste plastics for the recycling industry.

"We urge developed countries to stop shipping garbage to our country," said government minister Yeo Bee Yin.

Philippines

In late June the Philippines returned to Canada tonnes of rubbish held in 69 containers that had been in the Asian country for six years.

It put an end to a row dating back to 2013 and 2014 when a Canadian company shipped containers mislabelled as recyclable plastics to the Philippines.

The shipment actually contained a mixture of paper, plastics, electronics and household waste, including kitchen trash and diapers.

Some of the waste was disposed of in the Philippines, but much of it stewed in local ports for years.

Cambodia

In July Cambodia said it would send back to the United States and Canada 1,600 tonnes of illegal plastic waste found in shipping containers.

Seventy of the containers, stored at the southern port town of Sihanoukville, came from the United States and 13 from Canada.

Sri Lanka

Also in July, Sri Lankan customs ordered the return to Britain of 111 containers abandoned in Colombo port for nearly two years and found to be holding hazardous mortuary and clinical waste, possibly including human organs.

The containers, discovered after they emanated a huge stink, were illegally imported from Britain under the cover of metal recycling.

Of 241 dodgy containers imported since 2017, 130 had been taken to a free-trade zone near the port where they have contaminated the water and air.

Indonesia

In late July Indonesia returned seven containers of illegally imported waste to France and Hong Kong from its Batam island port. They were loaded with a combination of garbage, plastic waste and hazardous materials.

Authorities were still waiting for clearance to return another 42 containers of waste at the port to the United States, Australia and Germany.

Earlier the same month the country said it would send more than 210 tonnes of garbage back to Australia.

The rubbish was in eight containers seized in Surabaya that should have contained only waste paper but were found to include household trash such as plastic bottles and packaging, used diapers, electronic waste and cans.

In June Indonesia returned five containers of rubbish to the United States.

Philippines ships dumped trash back to Canada

Yahoo – AFP, Ron LOPEZ, May 31, 2019

Container ship MV Bavaria, hired by Canada to take its trash back, arrives 

at Subic Bay in the Philippines (AFP Photo/Noel CELIS)

Manila (AFP) - Tonnes of garbage sent to the Philippines years ago was shipped back to Canada on Friday after a festering diplomatic row, as Asian nations increasingly reject serving as dumping grounds for international trash.

After a long campaign to urge Canada to take back the rotting waste, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out at Ottawa last week and ordered the refuse returned immediately.

The 69 shipping containers of garbage were loaded onto a cargo vessel at Subic Bay, a former US naval base and shipping port northwest of Manila, and began the lengthy trip to Canada.

"Baaaaaaaaa bye, as we say it," Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin wrote on Twitter, along with images of the vessel leaving.

Canada's Environment Minister Catherine McKenna welcomed the news of the trash being returned, telling reporters on Thursday: "We committed with the Philippines and we're working closely with them."

People swim at a beach in Subic Bay where a container ship hired by Canada is 

loaded with trash that the Philippines has ordered returned (AFP Photo/Noel CELIS)

Just days earlier Malaysia announced it was shipping 450 tonnes of imported plastic waste back to its sources, including Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

For years China had received the bulk of scrap plastic from around the world, but closed its doors to foreign refuse last year in an effort to clean up its environment.

Huge quantities of waste plastic have since been redirected to Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia and to a lesser degree the Philippines.

"We've seen pristine communities... transformed into dumpsites because of a tsunami of waste shipments from the US, UK and Australia as a result of the China ban," said Von Hernandez, global coordinator from Break Free From Plastic advocacy group.

300 million tonnes of waste

The Philippine row centres on dozens of containers which a Canadian firm sent to the Southeast Asian nation in 2013 and 2014 -- incorrectly labelled as recyclables.

The issue has polluted Manila-Ottawa ties for years, but it blew up when Duterte said in an April speech: "Let's fight Canada. I will declare war against them."

Since then Canada pledged to take back the waste, but after it missed a Manila-imposed May 15 deadline the Philippines recalled its envoys to Ottawa.

The Philippines garbage row centres on dozens of containers which a Canadian

firm sent to the Southeast Asian nation -- incorrectly labelled as recyclables

(AFP Photo/Noel CELIS)

Duterte's spokesman, Salvador Panelo, ratcheted up the pressure by saying Manila would ship the trash back on its own "immediately" and threatened to dump the waste in Canadian waters.

From the Philippine side there were immediate signs the departure of the trash would stabilise Manila-Ottawa relations.

"To our recalled posts, get your flights back. Thanks and sorry for the trouble you went through to drive home a point." Foreign Secretary Locsin tweeted on Friday.

Global concern over plastic pollution has been spurred by shocking images of waste-clogged rivers in Southeast Asia and accounts of dead sea creatures found with kilos of refuse in their stomachs.

Around 300 million tonnes of plastic are produced every year, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), with much of it ending up in landfills or polluting the seas, in what has become a growing international crisis.

Related Article:

Tanzania latest African nation to ban plastic bags

EU parliament approves ban on single use plastics

Yahoo – AFP, March 27, 2019

In addition to the ban on a dozen kinds of disposable plastic products, such as straws,
cutlery and cotton buds, the EU will encourage member states to reduce the use of
plastic packaging and introduce stricter labelling rules (AFP Photo/Patrick Pleul)

Brussels (AFP) - European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for an EU-wide ban on single-use plastic products such as the straws, cutlery and cotton buds that are clogging the world's oceans.

The text had already been approved in negotiations with member states and EU officials and it will now be rapidly approved into law. The ban comes into effect from 2021.

EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said Europe was not the worst source of plastic pollution, but that the pioneering measure could serve as an example to the world.

"Asian countries are very much interested in what we're doing. Latin American countries too," he said.

"Even though our share of the pollution is relatively limited, our change of the economic model has a global impact."

Types of single-use plastics to be banned by the European Union (AFP Photo/

Simon MALFATTO)

The law passed by 560 votes to 35 in the Strasbourg assembly.

Aside from the ban on a dozen kinds of disposable products for which alternatives exist, the EU will encourage member states to reduce the use of plastic packaging and introduce stricter labelling rules.

The law sets a target that 90 percent of plastic bottles will be gathered for recycling by 2029 and that they should be produced with 25 percent recycled material by 2025, 30 percent by 2030.

Rules insisting that polluters pay the costs of a clean-up are strengthened, particularly for cigarette manufacturers, who will have to support the recycling of discarded filters.

According to the EU Commission, the products prohibited under the law represent 70 percent of the waste that pours into the world's oceans, posing a threat to wildlife and fisheries.

Plastic in crosshairs at UN environment forum

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick GALEY, March 11, 2019

Plastic garbage at Lampung Bay, on the southern tip of the Indonesian island
of Sumatra (AFP Photo/PERDIANSYAH)

Nairobi (AFP) - Countries from around the world set their sights Monday on a pivotal deal to curb plastic waste, a source of long-term pollution and worsening contamination of the ocean's food chain.

Thousands of delegates, business leaders and campaigners are in Nairobi for the five-day UN Environment Assembly, the top annual forum on the planet's environmental crisis.

The UN wants individual countries to sign up to "significantly" reduce plastic production, including a phasing out of single-use plastics by 2030 -- a goal inspired by the 2015 Paris Agreement on voluntary reductions of carbon emissions.

"In the field of (plastic) pollution we don't have such agreements," Siim Kiisler, UN Environment Assembly president and Estonia's environment minister, told journalists as the gathering got underway.

"This is the first time (we have) to convince member states to make international commitments."

A landmark report due out this week is expected to ram home the warning of the threat to ecosystems from rampant plastic and chemical waste.

In the Mosafejo area of Lagos, plastic waste is being used to fill a swamp so that

the land can be developed for housing (AFP Photo/Yasuyoshi CHIBA)

The world currently produces more than 300 million tonnes of plastics annually, and there are at least five trillion plastic pieces floating in our oceans, scientists have estimated.

Microplastics have been found in the deepest sea trenches and high up Earth's tallest peaks, and plastic consumption is growing year-on-year.

"Plastic is a very good material, it's durable, flexible and light," Kiisler said. "This means we should make the best out of it for as long as possible instead of disposing of it."

The conference started on a sombre note after an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed on Sunday, killing all 157 on board, many of whom were heading to the event.

The Nairobi meeting comes against the backdrop of series of UN reports outlining in stark terms the damage mankind is doing to the planet, much of it due to reckless consumption.

"These things are all linked: climate, the environment, waste," one delegate told AFP.

One briefing on the eve of the summit said the cost of ecosystems loss through agriculture, deforestation and pollution was a much as $20 trillion (17.7 trillion euros) since 1995.

Map showing ocean trenches up to 10 km deep where scientists found tiny 

shrimps which had ingested microplastics. (AFP Photo/Jonathan WALTER)

Acting UN environment chief Joyce Msuya said the world needed to "transform the way our economies work... break the link between growth and increased resource use, and end our throwaway culture."

The One Planet Summit on Thursday will bring together heads of state including French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta to lend political clout to the process.

Kiisler said it was a "critical time for action to protect and reverse the degradation of our planet.

"We are not going fast enough," he told reporters.

"Today we are talking about declarations and commitments but I believe in the future we need some international legislation in place."

The UN on Monday also warned that the global scale of chemical production was likely to double between now and 2030.

A study it commissioned found that worldwide chemical production capacity stands at 2.3 billion tonnes and is growing despite repeat warnings from environmental groups of the dangers hazardous materials pose to ecosystems.

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Ocean Cleanup move to the Pacific, ‘a milestone’ says Dutch inventor

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup