Cover story | Plastic Smart Cities
Cities of the future must be zero plastic Plastic is one of the deadliest creations of man, being non-biodegradable and difficult to recycle. Only a few decades old, plastic waste has scourged the environment and has already begun changing natural ecosystems, particularly oceans and areas around landfills. As millions of tonnes of plastic waste is generated every day, ‘what can be the remedy to plastic?’ remains the one to be answered
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lastics are the scourge of the environment, considered by many as a necessary evil. With this in mind, it is important to note that more than half of the world’s plastic was manufactured after the year 2000, and about 75 per cent of all plastic ever produced is already waste. Thus, a solution to plastics is essential to the achievement of Agenda 2030, now more than ever. The World Wildlife Fund’s Plastic Smart Cities is an initiative that helps cities worldwide in realising the need to systematically phase out plastics from their production, consumption and disposal systems, and to switch to greener and cleaner alternatives. So far, the initiative has a total of 31 participating cities, most of them from Southeast Asia and Europe. Plastic Smart Cities provides a platform for cities to come together, share their knowledge and experiences, and also helps them with access to a world of expertise. The initiative supports cities and coastal centres in taking bold action to stop plastic pollution, with a goal to reduce plastic leakage into nature by 30 per cent in the near term, and achieving no plastics in nature by 2030. With a little over eight years to go till the deadline of the long term goals of the initiative, it is necessary to assess how their progress has been.
Waste prevention
Ashley Paul Senior Sub-Editor
22 November 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in
The famous saying, ‘Prevention is better than cure,’ applies perfectly to tackling the global plastic crisis. The Plastic Smart Cities initiative makes use of the same strategy, giving prime importance to smart prevention instead of systematic disposal. The initiative signifies prevention of generation of waste from source and puts to use a number of approaches – a ban on single-use plastics; edible packaging; packaging material fees; city waste rating; and plastic credit system, etc. A number of these approaches deal with phasing out the use of plastic in
