Did you know that governments are incentivizing the plastics industry to keep producing plastics? We're excited to launch Hidden Plastic’s latest video, and our first petition - on plastics subsidies!
With the global plastics industry receiving an estimated $45 billion each year, governments around the world are rewarding this polluting industry to keep producing plastics. These subsidies are shifting the true cost of producing plastics to taxpayers, which makes plastics artificially cheap. This also makes it harder for reuse, refill methods and plastic alternatives to compete in price. Just imagine if that $45 billion were instead redirected to truly sustainable alternatives?
The irony is that subsidies aren’t even included in the treaty text. They were for a short period of time, but have been removed in the Chair’s latest version of the treaty draft. How are governments of the world negotiating on a treaty to bring an end to plastic pollution, when we’ve not even stopped funding this harmful practice? To turn the tide on plastic pollution, it feels essential that we stop incentivizing this industry to keep producing plastics at an artificially cheap rate.
Hidden Plastic is calling for INC Chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso and Executive Director of UNEP, Inger Andersen to include plastics subsidies in the final plastic treaty text Will you join us? You can help by signing the petition, sharing and spreading the word. Together, we can call for an end to plastics subsidies.
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