PANEL 1: Climate Resilience and Blue Economy Development
Thank you, I am Valbona Mazreku from MilieuKontakt an NGO based in Albania - which you all probably know, is a tourist spot on the Mediterranean Sea!
I would like to share input from yesterday’s Civil Society Forum. As the presentations we just have heard, data is essential to understand the scale of the problem. And I want to focus on the pollution of our oceans and seas with waste. Our seas have become dumping grounds, and that is killing them.
Land-based pollution is a huge problem, including in the Mediterranean, plastic waste and other pollution enter the seas via rivers and other water bodies. More than 230.000 TONS of plastic waste are leaking into the Mediterranean every year. Microplastic pollution is already very high.
The Mediterranean which has only 1% of global water content, already concentrates 7% of global microplastic pollution!
When we eat fish, we eat microplastics. Our babies are born with microplastics, and studies show this does irreversible harm to our health, therefore, the most urgent policy need is to end plastic pollution, let me give 3 points on how to do that:
1) All Member States should ensure we agree this year on the global treaty to End Plastic Pollution, which is going into its final round of negotiations here in Geneva in August this year.
The plastic treaty HAS to agree on a cap on plastic production.
There is no REAL recycling of plastics, only downcycling! Plastic recycling is a myth.
Instead, we need innovation and the use of local fibers from agricultural waste, for example, to produce the substitutes for plastics that we need.
2)All Member States need to pass legislation now to end single-use plastics in their countries. Most of these single-use plastics are NOT essential, the substitutes exist, and what we need is the right incentives.
3)Therefore, we need to pass financial mechanisms that put fees and fines on plastics, and that are invested into the substitution of plastics and in scaling up good practices.
For example, my NGO is working in Albania with economic actors from hotels, restaurants, and shops, on creating ‘low-plastic zones’ as part of our RIVERCLEAN project. There are more than 700 businesses - big and small - in 14 municipalities that have joined, working together to reduce plastic waste by moving to product substitutes, such as made from paper, cartons, and reusable containers and cutlery. In the first year, we reduced already 27,000 kilograms only of plastic waste, it is really not so difficult! With financial incentives and clear rules and standards, it would be even easier!
This is not only good for the Mediterranean, but also for our economy, as plastic pollution and a dirty sea are bad for tourism.