Kristina Algas
World Environment Day, celebrated each year on June 5th, is an international holiday for spreading awareness of the mounting global environmental crisis. The holiday was created by the United Nations in 1973, headlined with the slogan “Only One Earth”. Since 1986, World Environment Day has focused on a new theme and slogan each year to promote a different aspect of environmental conservation.
This year’s World Environment Day marks its 50th anniversary, the theme of which was “#beatplasticpollution”. Plastic pollution is a serious problem across the world; a study by OECD.org found that single-use plastic consumption quadrupled between 2000 and 2019, while another study found that only 9% of the plastic waste produced globally each year ends up recycled. In fact, the overwhelming majority of plastic waste either ends up in landfills or remains uncollected, littering the land or eventually finding its way to the ocean.
Image by Maruf Rahman from Pixabay
While plastic pollution is a global problem, single-use plastic usage and waste is especially prevalent in Bangladesh. The country’s thriving plastic industry single-handedly contributes millions of USD to the country every year; in 2017 alone, the plastic industry contributed 2.5k million USD to the domestic Bangladeshi economy.
However, this profit comes at an even steeper cost, as plastic pollution continues to pile up in Bangladesh. Single-plastic use continues to skyrocket as the plastic industry continues to develop unchecked, with no signs of regulation or environmental policies. Moreover, Bangladesh is a coastal nation with a variety of diverse ecosystems; plastic pollution produced in Bangladesh is more likely to find its way to the ocean, or cause direct harm to sensitive regions such as the Sundarbans Reserved Forest. As such, it is all the more important to raise awareness of the effects of single-use plastics in Bangladesh.
To celebrate World Environment Day, we teamed up with the Bangladesh Ecotourism Conservation Alliance (BECA) to host a celebration at Burirdabor SESDP Model High School. This World Day Environment celebration was aimed at high school students to raise their awareness of environmental conservation and plastic pollution.
Image provided by Bangladesh Ecotourism and Conservation Alliance
After a series of speeches from various school faculty and organizational heads, both speakers and students alike took an oath to avoid harming the environment and to reduce their usage of single-use plastic products. The World Environment Day festivities included tree planting, a climate change rally, and a community cleanup event where students helped pick up some of the litter and plastic waste around their school. At the celebration’s conclusion, the closing ceremony included a speech about how the students could continue to improve their communities by raising environmental awareness and reducing their plastic usage.
Image provided by Bangladesh Ecotourism and Conservation Alliance
The World Environment Day celebration helped raise the community’s awareness of plastic pollution and the importance of plastic waste management. In 2019, Bangladesh recycled only 36% of the plastic waste it produced in that year alone (estimated at a whopping 825 thousand tonnes). Although much work remains to be done in Bangladesh, educating local youth about the importance of conservation and waste reduction is the first step to enacting meaningful change.
Image by Kampus Production from Pexels
Ultimately, plastic pollution is a global issue. It will take an enormous amount of effort from people around the world to enact tangible change; however, there’s no need to wait until the next World Environment Day to act. Here are some simple, easy ways you can reduce plastic waste in your everyday life:
At Greater Sundarbans Ecotourism Society (GSETS), we are dedicated to helping our destination build a thriving and sustainable tourism industry to reduce the ecological impact of the ever-growing tourism industry. Follow us on Facebook to get event announcements and join us for our next trash pick up or #beatplasticpollution event.
Kristina Algas
Kristina Algas is a 2023 graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a BA in Communications. She participated in the Summer 2023 internship at Solimar International, assisting the USAID Ecotourism Activity project team develop website and social media content, blog articles, and other technical writing to support Sustainable Tourism Development in the Greater Sundarbans region of Bangladesh.