Greenpeace has responded to reports that the South African government plans to reject a new proposed global treaty on plastics.
According to a document reportedly leaked to the Mail and Guardian, the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries is afraid that the plastic ban will make it harder for the country to, among other things, capitalise on the plastic waste trade.
Angelo Louw, pan-Africa project plastic lead at Greenpeace Africa, comments: “The South African government remains tone deaf to our needs for a safe and healthy plastic free environment.
“One of the scariest realisations in the document is that our government is considering importing plastic waste despite global outrage against using other countries as dumping sites. Several countries in Asia have stopped accepting waste due to the environmental injustice it causes underprivileged communities; the United Nations just released a much-publicised report on this.
“As noted in the document, the South African government is fully aware of the country’s contribution to ocean plastic pollution – we are the world’s eleventh-largest contributor. Yet, they are hoping to derail the global treaty because it might stand in the way of them capitalising on the plastic crisis.”
Niven Reddy, regional co-ordinator, at Break Free from Plastic, says: “The government’s argument is that there are sufficient existing platforms that cover the issue of plastic, namely the Stockholm and Basel conventions. However, these platforms are only looking at plastic at its end of life, they deal with the impact of plastic.
“We need a treaty that is looking at plastic further up the value chain and that is what the global treaty is going to do. As long as the department is acting with the interests of the plastics industry in mind, they are not going to be ambitious enough.”