Environmentally Speaking: Closing the Loop : CSE
Apply by 25th Oct 23 / Time – 4 -5 pm / Zoom
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi. CSE researches into, lobbies for and communicates the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable. The scenario today demands using knowledge to bring about change. In other words, working India’s democracy. This is what we aim to do.The challenge, we see, is two-pronged. On the one hand, millions live within a biomass based subsistence economy, at the margins of survival. The environment is their only natural asset. But a degraded environment means stress on land, water and forest resources for survival. It means increasing destitution and poverty. Here, opportunity to bring about change is enormous.But it will need a commitment to reform – structural reform- in the way we do business with local communities. On the other hand, rapid industrialization is throwing up new problems: growing toxification and a costly disease burden. The answers will be in reinventing the growth model of the Western world for ourselves, so that we can leapfrog technology choices and find new ways of building wealth that will not cost us the earth. Our aim is to raise these concerns, participate in seeking answers and in pushing for answers, transforming these into policy and so practice. We do this through our research and by communicating our understanding through our publications. We call this knowledge-based activism. We hope we will make a difference.
The pervasive presence of plastic has become an undeniable force shaping our world and the way we consume. Once hailed as one of the greatest human inventions, it is now posing global environmental issues from ecosystem disruptions to health risks to ultimately exacerbating climate change. Do you know that the growth rate of the Indian plastics industry is one of the highest in the world? According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), more than 25,000 tonnes of plastic is generated in the country every single day. Around 43 per cent of this is manufactured for packaging purposes, which is mostly single-use. Despite the nationwide ban on specific single-use plastic items, these items continue to circulate even a year after the ban.
As a global initiative to promote sustainable production and consumption of plastics, the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) decided to form an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INCs) in March 2022. The committee will work towards an international legally-binding instrument to combat plastic pollution. In this context, plastic circularity is an emerging area. There has been an increased focus on transitioning from a linear economy to one that follows a ‘closed loop’ system. An understanding of the current realities of plastic waste management can be the first step towards dealing with the issue.
CSE’s Green Educators’ Network (GEN) invites its Members to its next online lecture of the exclusive session series Environmentally Speaking. This Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 4 PM, CSE’s inhouse expert Siddharth G. Singh will discuss the issue of plastics, its management and the global negotiations around it.
Please click on the link below to register for the session.
To know more, contact:
SAKSHI UNIYAL
Programme Officer
Environment Education, CSE,
Email: sakshi.uniyal@cseindia.org
Phone: (011) 40616000, Extn 300
