资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

From promoting innovative eco-design to banning the use of single-use plastic straws, efforts to curb plastic pollution are as ubiquitous as plastic itself. However, the problem is not going away. It is time to adopt a new strategy.

The National Guidance for Plastic Pollution Hotspotting and Shaping Action is a guide for countries, regions and cities to develop strategic plans for tackling plastic pollution. Developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Life Cycle Initiative, the guide provides methods for identifying plastic leakage “hotspots”, finding their impacts along the plastic value chain, and prioritizing actions.

A “hotspot” is defined as either a component of the system that directly or indirectly contributes to plastic leakage and impact, or that can be acted upon to mitigate this leakage or the resulting impacts.

Ligia Noronha, Director of UNEP’s Economy Division explains, “When your boat is sinking, you have to find the source of the leak and fix it. It’s the same with plastic pollution. We need to address the challenge at its source. We hope governments and other relevant stakeholders find this Guidance report useful in shaping their strategies to address the plastic challenge and improve circularity in the plastic value chain.”

Specifically, the guide provides a replicable, harmonized, methodological framework, allowing stakeholders at national, sub-national and local levels to identify plastic leakages and associated impacts and implement appropriate actions.  It also allows for the development of national and sub-national baselines, so that plastic pollution can be monitored and the success of interventions can be evaluated. Alongside the guidance, modules and tools to help users collect data, create models, perform calculations and develop interventions will be published on the project webpage at a later stage.