Opinion | How Asia can beat its plastics addiction and fight climate change
- While coping with the coronavirus pandemic, single-use plastics have proliferated and recycling has ground to a halt
- To combat the problem, Southeast and South Asia need to adopt a circular economy framework in plastics, which would help cut noxious emissions
As we inch closer to the promise of mass vaccination and kick off 2021 in the Year of the Ox, it is time to adjust our perspective: these crises present incredible prospects for economic recovery and growth. We now have the chance to take a step back and hit the reset button, revisit basic assumptions and assess whether our current approach can address the problem.
First, we need to invest more in local resilience, economies, and supply chains to foster sustainable economic growth and generate new jobs in the new normal. Job creation can no longer just be about generating more positions; instead, we should be creating pandemic-resistant jobs.
Second, we need to harmonise the pandemic recovery response with strategies that attain systemic environmental resiliency. The pandemic and ongoing environmental issues can be addressed simultaneously – through a fundamental shift away from a focus on short-term performance of systems, to ensuring sustained outcomes in the longer term.
CLIMATE CHANGE LINK
Today, public opinion largely agrees about the dangers of climate change. However, the link between plastic pollution and the climate crisis is not often made. Rather, some think that the growing focus on plastic pollution is detracting from the climate change issue.
According to The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, sustainability efforts such as moving to renewable energy sources can only achieve a 55 per cent reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is an essential step, but embracing renewable energy alone cannot address the complex problem of climate change.