MIAMI. – International Day Free of Scholarships Plastic Day is on July 3 and its objective is to reduce single-use plastic bags and promote responsible consumption.
In 1933, the one-piece polyethylene bag was patented by the Swedish company Celloplast. By 1979, these bags had already spread to the rest of the world and were popularized in the United States, after controlling 80% of the market in Europe.
The UN notes that although these bags were a novelty in 1970, they are now ubiquitous worldwide.
“The bags of plastic They are produced at a rate of one trillion each year and have reached the darkest depths of the oceans, the top of Mount Everest and even the polar ice caps, creating significant challenges,” says the UN programme for the environment.
Bangladesh became the first country to ban thin plastic bags in 2002, after the bags were found to be linked to clogging drainage systems during disastrous floods.
By 2018, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that 127 countries had enacted some form of legislation to address the effects of plastic bags.
US Commitment
The UN refers to the decision of USA to support, in 2022, a global treaty to combat ocean plastic pollution.
It is estimated that the garbage that reaches the sea, especially the type plasticare killing more than one million seabirds and some 100,000 marine mammals and turtles annually.
Approximately 6.4 billion kilos of garbage are dumped into the ocean, most of which is plastic material.
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Source: United Nations / International Day Portal
