The uninhabited Henderson Island in the South Pacific Photo: Jennifer Lavers
A new study on plastic consumption warns that business as usual will result in nearly double the amount of plastic pollution.
World leaders, including the Pacific, are currently meeting in South Korea to try agree on a new international treaty to fight plastic pollution.
Neil Nathan, one of the authors of the study, Pathways to reduce global plastic waste mismanagement and greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which was published in the journal Science, said business as usual means plastic waste will continue to grow exponentially.
"If we don't do anything, if we don't have a strong treaty in place and make a really big effort to reduce plastic pollution and waste, we're on track to nearly double the amount of plastic pollution or mismanaged plastic waste entering our environment," Nathan said.
"That's a really alarming amount, we modelled what this could look like as a cumulative amount of plastic that's been generated between 2011 through to 2050 and it would be enough plastic to essentially cover the entire island of Manhattan in a pile that's 10 times the height of the Empire State Building."
The study put forward four policies to curb the problem by 91 percent and reduce plastic-related greenhouse gases by a third.
"We can actually nearly eliminate this problem by 2050, 2040 even just with a few but ambitious and a comprehensive set of policies that are currently being negotiated at the treaty."
The study recommended mandating new products to be made with 40 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic, cap new plastic production at 2020 levels, invest significantly in waste management - such as landfills - and put a small fee on plastic packaging.
Anthony Talouli, director of waste management and pollution control at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) said the treaty is in the "final stages" of being a strong legally binding agreement.
"For the sake of all humanity, we need strong text on the table - plastic is everywhere on earth, nowhere goes untouched," Talouli said.
"With this declaration we have the science we now need the will to act. We must end plastic pollution before plastic pollution ends us."
Fiji's plastic negotiator Sivendra Michael, who was previously at UN climate conference COP29, told Reuters that Fiji is one of the nations bearing the brunt of plastic pollution.
"Where do these plastics end up? It ends up in our oceans, in our landfill, in our backyards," he said.
"The impact of the plastics breaking down into little substances has detrimental effects, not only on the environment, but on us as individuals, on our health."
