WWF is delighted to announce an agreement between WWF-International and UN-Habitat. This is a new partnership between WWF’s Plastic Smart Cities initiative and UN Habitat’s Waste Wise Cities campaign aims to tackling plastic pollution in urban centres and tourism destinations.
An estimated 60% of plastic marine debris derived from urban centres, is carried to the ocean by rivers. While cities will rapidly increase their populace to account for two-thirds of the global population by 2050, they must urgently adopt smart solutions that reduce the collective impact of their prospering communities. This means preventing, minimizing and managing plastic. Many good examples and initiatives are already underway; WWF and UN-Habitat seek to accelerate these existing efforts by empowering cities around the world to become Plastic Smart and Waste Wise, building cities’ capacity to eliminate plastic pollution by 2030. By joining Plastic Smart Cities, city leaders call on governments to introduce a global legally-binding agreement to stop plastics polluting our oceans.
WWF and UN-Habitat will partner to unleash the potential of cities to accelerate sustainable waste and reduce plastic pollutions. They will do so by sharing best practices and working with cities to improve sustainable waste management, collect waste data, organize training and capacity building programs and working towards global advocacy and awareness raising on plastic pollution.
Vincent Kneefel, Global Cities Lead for WWF’s No Plastic in Nature initiative: ”With eight million metric tons of plastic entering our oceans each year, mismanaged plastic waste is profoundly threatening people and the environment, especially rivers and oceans. We are proud to partner with UN-Habitat and to launch the Plastic Smart Cities best practices platform. We are confident that through this initiative, together we can create a global movement of cities taking action to tackle plastic pollution and stop leakage of plastic into nature.”
Plastic Smart Cities and Waste Wise Cities campaigns will strengthen action when it comes to preventing, measuring, and managing waste at a local level. The goal is to promote best practices around the world and to make sure that smart measures on plastic reduction and waste management are widely shared. With strong commitments from cities, governments and industry, we can end additional plastics in nature and ensure the safety of our communities and the environment.
UN-Habitat and WWF urge all cities from around the world to tackle plastic pollution and to join the movement.
Original source: WWF
Published on 09 February 2020
