My Key Takeaways From the NREEL ILA World Environment Day Webinar 2025 Titled: Beating Plastic Pollution; From Promise to Practice

The World Environment Day webinar, themed "Beating Plastic Pollution" and "From Promise to Practice," underscored that the plastic crisis is profoundly a human issue, demanding human-centric solutions and a collective, just transition towards a sustainable future.

Here are my key takeaways:

• Plastic Pollution is a Human Rights Imperative: Plastic pollution is not merely an environmental problem but fundamentally a human rights issue. This is grounded in the UN General Assembly's 2022 recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, which imposes a global obligation on governments to safeguard people from environmental harm. The visible presence of plastic waste polluting rivers, streets, coastlines, and communities across Africa has a direct impact on human well-being and health, with microplastics and toxic chemicals posing serious risks. The global production of over 230 million metric tons of plastic annually, with less than 10% recycled, exacerbates environmental degradation and poses serious risks to biodiversity and human health.

•The Indispensable Role and Vulnerability of Informal Waste Workers: The webinar spotlighted the pivotal, yet often overlooked, contributions of the informal waste sector. Globally, these workers are responsible for recovering 58% of all plastic waste. In Nigerian cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Abuja, thousands of informal waste pickers, recyclers, and aggregators recover over 130 tons of recyclables daily, significantly reducing landfill burdens and emissions while providing essential services that governments often struggle to deliver. Despite their vital service, these individuals operate under unsafe, underappreciated, and often stigmatized conditions, facing systemic neglect, hazardous environments, and a lack of adequate protection or fair wages. This is despite Nigeria's ratification of key International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on fair wages, safe working conditions, and the abolition of forced labor, protections that often remain out of reach for informal waste workers.

• Ensuring a "Just Transition": A critical and recurring theme was the necessity of a "just transition" that leaves no one behind in the shift away from plastics. There are complex economic interests at play; nearly 10% of Nigeria's GDP depends on plastics and petrochemicals, and entrepreneurs expressed concerns for the livelihoods of waste pickers and recyclers. The upcoming legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution must explicitly recognize the contributions of informal waste workers and ensure their livelihoods are protected. Efforts by NESREA to formalize the informal sector, provide incentives, and integrate them into the formal economy, such as offering startup grants, standardizing collection centers, providing vehicle assistance, and even assisting with corporate registration, exemplify steps toward this just transition. Countries like Brazil, Kenya, and India offer inspiring examples of integrating waste pickers into formal systems, paying them with food/transport credits, or providing ID cards and personal protective equipment.

• Shared Responsibility and Public Engagement: Beating plastic pollution is a shared responsibility that cannot be won by governments alone. Individuals are urged to reduce single-use plastic consumption, choose reusable alternatives, and participate in local cleanup campaigns. Communities must demand accountability from political authorities. Public participation in decision-making and extensive environmental awareness and education are critical for effective environmental regulation and behavioral change. This includes informing local businesses and consumers about sustainable alternatives and product redesign, leveraging social media, and reintroducing impactful public service campaigns. NESREA actively undertakes awareness creation efforts, including operating recycling and collection centers and collaborating with PROs and civil society organizations.

• Shifting from End-of-Life to Full Life-Cycle Thinking: Current responses disproportionately focus on end-of-life solutions like waste collection and recycling. The webinar advocated for a comprehensive, full life-cycle approach grounded in robust legislation and effective implementation, enforcement, and compliance. This includes:

1. Reduction: Through bans on unnecessary single-use plastics, eco-design standards (ensuring products are durable, reusable, repairable, and recyclable), and sustainable procurement.
2. Reuse: By expanding investment in recycling infrastructure, implementing ambitious recycled content targets, and encouraging innovative return schemes like deposit-return systems. Many African communities already intuitively practice reuse, but formal infrastructure is needed.
3. Addressing Legacy Plastics: With measures such as banning open dumping and burning, enforcing stricter landfill and incineration regulations, and funding large-scale cleanup efforts.
4. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Holding producers financially and operationally accountable throughout their product's life cycle incentivizes sustainable design and material innovation. Nigeria's National Policy on Plastic Waste Management (2022) and the awaiting National Environmental Plastic Waste Control Regulation provide frameworks for EPR, promoting high recyclability content and establishing Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs). NESREA also utilizes a National Plastic Registry and Plastic Waste Tracking System to monitor waste flow.

Ultimately, the webinar conveyed a powerful message of collective action and the need for an intgentional human agency in transforming the plastic crisis from a looming threat into an opportunity for equitable and sustainable development, with Nigeria, as a regional leader, having a vital role to play in advocating for an inclusive, ambitious, and enforceable global plastics treaty.