Norway has played a decisive role in the international agreement against plastic litter – Dagsavisen

Our consumption of plastic is enormous! Every year, the world produces 360 million tonnes of plastic waste – more than the weight of all the people on Earth combined. Without effective countermeasures, the amount will triple by the year 2060. The consequences could be catastrophic.

Therefore, the UN has decided that an international agreement should be developed that can overcome the increasing plastic pollution now and in the future. This week, representatives from 175 countries are sitting around the negotiating table in Ottawa to agree on an agreement text.

Norway has contributed greatly to the development of this plastic agreement, including through an aid program of NOK 1.6 billion that was established in 2018 to prevent and reduce plastic litter from large sources in developing countries.

This program was originally only supposed to last until 2024, but at the opening of the negotiations in Ottawa, Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim provided one billion fresh kroner for the fight against plastic pollution over the next four years. That’s promising!

The aid program supports a number of projects that the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) and other actors are conducting with partners in populous countries in Asia. Many of these countries are inundated with plastic because they lack good systems to minimize the production of and manage plastic waste. The effect of measures to reduce plastic litter will be greatest here.

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Plastic pollution is not only an environmental problem – it is also a significant social problem.

In many poor countries, millions of people make a living by collecting and selling plastic waste. Many of them work in the informal sector, i.e. without regulated pay and employment conditions, but they play an absolutely crucial role in handling the world’s plastic waste.

NIVA has mapped waste management in this sector in New Delhi, India. Here, sorting and recycling of plastic often takes place in tired factory premises without ventilation or other HSE measures. The factories are often located in residential areas where there is ample access to cheap labour. Many of the residents have this health-damaging work as their main source of income. This is the flip side of the globalized circular economy.

Plastic pollution is not only an environmental problem – it is also a significant social problem

In Southeast Asia, population growth and consumption have skyrocketed without waste management systems keeping up. This has made the region a hotspot for plastic pollution. In Vietnam, close to four million tonnes of plastic waste is generated each year. Informal actors recycle a third of this, the rest ends up in landfill or in nature. An aid project that NIVA leads is working to find the most effective measures to reduce plastic litter in Vietnam and other countries in the region. How should the authorities find long-term solutions for waste management in their countries?

These are societal challenges that the dealers in Ottawa must know if we are to get an effective and fair agreement against plastic pollution.

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A good measure in Norway will not necessarily work in India. The plastic agreement must promote reduction measures that have an international effect. At the same time, all measures must be implemented nationally or even locally, in which case you are dependent on local capacity and knowledge.

Solutions cannot come at the expense of the human rights of those who work in New Delhi’s waste sorting. Nor does it help to sort waste in Vietnam if there are no good arrangements for handling different types of waste.

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The project collaborations that the Aid Program finances have contributed to the negotiators in Ottawa being able to base the text of the agreement on relevant and newly acquired knowledge. It is important.

In the same way, the new billion from the government must be used wisely when the agreement is to be implemented.

In a world that has become completely dependent on plastic, it will be both expensive and complicated to implement an agreement that can reverse the trend. This will particularly be a challenge for poorer countries.

The developing countries cannot solve this problem on behalf of the whole world. In order for them to be able to support – and join – a plastics agreement with high ambitions, they must see that it is accompanied by funding for effective and sustainable measures.

With the new billion, Norway has the opportunity to assure the dealers in Ottawa that we will contribute to finding solutions to the societal challenges that our, and the world’s, skyrocketing consumption of plastic creates in poorer countries.

Only in this way can we ensure that the world gets a functioning and fair agreement against plastic pollution.

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