Solutions to Plastic Pollution

Yes, we can beat plastic pollution. Just start from Campus!

The water that we drink today is possibly what thirsty dinosaurs were drinking about 65 million years ago. This is just one example of nature's invisible 'circular economy'! As the water warms up, it travels into the sky as vapour-very tiny droplets. It comes back as rainwater, when the water vapour gets colder, it turns back to liquid to help form clouds. No new water is generated.

Nature's circular economy uses natural capital and generates the profits that are pulled back into the economy to renew our planet's business. Natural cycles in the atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere are part of that circular economy. The life-supporting elements oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus move through the cycles. If nature writes an ESG report, it would not need any consultant to write it, and still, it would rank on top forever!

Unfortunately, we have not learned much about this circular economy of nature. We did not even bother to attend the 'class of Nature' and started our 'enterprise' to ruin nature without graduating.

Today every year, over 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide – one-third of which is used just once. Every day, the equivalent of over 2000 garbage trucks full of plastic is presently dumped into our oceans, rivers, and lakes and finally enter into the soil. There is no way that this plastic can be part of the cycle that supports life on the earth because plastic is made from fossil fuels and its constituents do not decompose by natural processes. They remain in our biospheres forever. Nature too produces plastics but they are biodegradable and they regenerate themselves.

The situation is serious because they finally find their way into the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. They may pass on to the next generation. One day future generations would read that 'Water that we drink and food that we eat is the same water and food with microplastic that our forefathers drank and ate!

The theme of World Environment Day-2023 is 'Solution to Plastic Pollution'. I call that pollution a 'Plastic Pandemic'. It is the pollution that would move from generation to generation. But we have a solution. That solution is to go back to basics to engage youth in the universities to shun single-use plastic. Smart Campus Cloud Network (SCCN) promotes the pledge, roadmap and guidelines developed by Green TERRE Foundation. A number of campuses are getting free from single-use plastic. SCCN is a class of solutions to plastic pollution. Visit: sccnhub.com.

 Dr Rajendra Shende

Former Director UNEP, IIT Alumni

Founder Director, Green TERRE Foundation

Prime Mover Smart Campus Cloud Network 

Coordinating lead author of IPCC.