President’s Letter: The Truth About Plastic

Many years ago, while working in Suriname, I visited Galibi Beach, located at the mouth of the Marowijne River on the Atlantic Ocean. The beach is a famous nesting spot for leatherback turtles. But unfortunately, what struck me most was the quantity of discarded plastic washed up along the shore. As I waded through the waste, I found that it came from multiple countries, based on the languages on the various cartons—Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, English. Up until that point, I hadn’t given the issue of plastic waste much thought, but now I couldn’t unsee it. I was in this remote, beautiful place, a breeding ground for an endangered species, and it was hideously polluted. My plastics education journey had begun.

While we strive to deliver positive conservation messages whenever we can at WWF, we must also be truthful. And the truth is that plastic waste is choking our planet. It’s polluting the air, water, and soil that people and wildlife depend on. Over 2,000 species have been directly impacted by plastic pollution, through entanglement, ingestion, or habitat degradation. Every minute of every day, a dump truck’s worth of plastic flows into our oceans. And of all the plastic ever made, less than 5% has been recycled.

But plastic is also a versatile, useful material that’s important for human health, safety, and livelihoods. Replacing all of it with other materials would not only be logistically challenging, but it would also come with huge impacts on nature, climate, and people. So, as with most enormous problems, there’s no simple solution.

But there is a way forward.

To prevent plastics from polluting our planet, WWF believes we need to reimagine how we source, design, reuse, and dispose of the plastic materials communities most depend on. We need holistic systems change that includes reduction, reuse, substitution of materials, recycling, and better waste management. And the American public agrees: The majority of Americans—85%—think that plastic waste pollution is a serious and concerning problem that requires immediate political action to solve.

To do this, we need to use less plastic, make the plastic that we do use better, and ensure that it gets used more than once—creating circularity. Solving plastic pollution is not just good for nature and people, it also makes economic sense—because nearly 95% of all plastic packaging value, some $80 billion to $120 billion a year, is lost to the economy following a short one-use cycle. This represents wasted resources that came from the planet at an enormous cost and wasted dollars for the companies purchasing these single-use items.

WWF’s approach unites a global network of industry leaders, policymakers, and the public to transform our systems so the plastics we discard can become plastics we use again. We’re working with companies to help them rethink how they design and sell their products and how to leverage their power for advocacy. We’re also educating and empowering individuals to take steps every day toward ending plastic pollution—an outcome that’s better for nature, better for business, and better for people.

Nik Sekhran

Chief Conservation Officer