Beating plastic pollution on World Environment Day 2018

As part of the Brussels-Capital Region’s three-day celebration of World Environment Day (5 June), the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) in partnership with the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC), Volvo Ocean Race and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries held an all-day interactive information stand on the need to turn the tide against single-use plastics at the Environment Festival on 3 June at the city’s Parc du Cinquantennaire.

Each World Environment Day draws attention on a pressing environmental concern and this year’s theme, “Beat Plastic Pollution”, is a call to action for us all to consider how we can make changes in our everyday lives to reduce the heavy burden of plastic pollution on our natural places, our wildlife – and our own health.

Through an array of stand activities, including quizzes, games, videos, a selfie online tag it game booth, an online pledge to beat plastic pollution, as well as discussions with some senior UN/EU experts throughout the day, visitors got the chance to learn that despite plastic having many valuable uses, we have become over reliant on single-use or disposable plastic which is bringing severe environmental consequences to our planet and survival.

Around the world, 1 million plastic drinking bottles are still purchased every minute, 50 % of the plastic we use is single use and every year up to 13 million tons of plastic leak into our oceans, where it smothers coral reefs and threatens vulnerable marine wildlife.

"On World Environment Day, the message is simple: reject single-use plastic. Refuse what you can’t re-use. Together, we can chart a path to a cleaner, greener world, " underlined the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development strongly highlights the need “to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources”. In particular, Goals 14 and 15 focus on protecting under water and on land ecosystems, as well as on sustainably using marine and terrestrial resources.

At our current rate, there will be more plastic waste in the sea than fish by 2050. This World Environment Day UN Environment is now asking all of us to come together to combat one of the great environmental challenges of our time and take concrete action to Beat Plastic Pollution.

Help clean up our environment and register your #BeatPlasticPollution event.

Further ways you can save the planet via The Lazy Person's Guide to Saving the World

View our photo gallery here