Before being elected to Parliament, I spent a total of 520 days and nights on our oceans, becoming the first woman to row solo across the 3 largest oceans – the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian, using my expeditions to raise awareness of our ecological crisis.
I have seen first-hand the devastating changes and degradation of the world’s waters caused by the overabundance of plastic products. Our oceans are now littered with an estimated 171 trillion pieces of plastic, causing devastating consequences for the species that call the ocean home.
We have all seen shocking images of turtles caught in plastic bags, or birds trapped in plastic rings. Yet many people do not recognise the scale of the crisis behind the pictures. These deaths by entrapment are not exceptional – they are all too common. It is estimated that plastic pollution kills 100,000 marine mammals every year and 100 per cent of animals washed up on British shores were found to have plastic in their stomachs.
Let that sink in. 100 per cent. ALL of them had ingested plastic.
The effects of plastic pollution are exacerbating climate change, driving biodiversity loss, damaging human health, and deepening social injustices. 33 countries have now officially recognised the impact of plastic pollution on a broad range of human rights at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The health impacts on humans are growing by the day. Recent research estimates that the average person consumes or breathes up to 211,000 microplastic particles each year. Plastic pollution affects us all, but women have been shown to be more vulnerable to the damaging impacts. Whether this is because women have higher exposure to plastics in their lifetime – for example, through feminine hygiene and beauty products, or because women’s metabolisms are more sensitive to plastic toxins due to higher oestrogen levels, this is cause for deep concern. The situation has become so bad that microplastics have been found in human placentas, raising concerns about the potential health impacts on babies before they have even been born.
But men don’t get off scot-free. Not at all. Microplastics have been found in the testicles of humans and dogs, with a higher concentration in humans. The “forever chemicals” in plastic can significantly impact sperm count, causing fertility issues.
This paints quite a dire picture, but there is hope for a brighter future. This week countries are coming together in Busan, South Korea for the final round of negotiations of the Global Plastics Treaty. This aim of these negotiations is to create a global legally binding agreement to reduce plastic pollution. This is the fifth set of talks for the treaty, and progress to date has unfortunately been slow.
However, we are now negotiating under a new Government that has recently signed up to the Bridge to Busan Declaration, calling for production limits to be included in the treaty. Labour however still needs to prove itself by translating this into tangible action in the talks. As a large producer and exporter of plastic waste, the UK has a responsibility to lead the calls for reducing plastic production and ensure that the treaty is set up for success with a supportive dedicated fund.
Coming off the back of COP29, however, international climate ambition is shockingly low, and there has been a failure to link up the plastic and climate crises we are facing. Plastic production is currently responsible for four times more greenhouse gas emissions than the aviation industry, yet it’s been notably absent from the climate negotiations as a source of emissions. In the last round of plastic treaty negotiations, Rwanda and Peru proposed a 40 per cent reduction in plastic production by 2040. This was the first concrete proposal of its kind to limit production. However, a recent report found that a 40×40 target is not sufficient on its own to meet the 1.5°C Paris Agreement climate target.
The Liberal Democrats set out our ambitions in our manifesto to finalise a Global Plastics Treaty and end plastic waste exports by 2030. I am pleased to now be pushing for my Private Members Bill, the Climate and Nature Bill, to pass through Parliament, which would require the Government to cut emissions in line with 1.5°C. It is clear that we cannot reach this target without addressing, and significantly reducing, plastic production.
While this is the first round of negotiations for the Labour Government, these talks are the last chance we have to set us on the right path to a future free of plastic pollution. Let’s call on the government to act now, for the sake of future generations.
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