World Consumer Rights Day, March 15, 2021

Millions of consumers arealready feeling the effects of climate change throughout the world. To protect the planet and provide fair social conditions for present and future generations, serious attention is needed on the way we produce and consume goods and services. In this stupendous endeavor the consumers have to play a key role, firstly, through their purchasing power, ability to push for system change in supply chains systems. Consumers are already making changes to their lifestyle to be more sustainable – recycling and reducing food waste, avoiding unsustainable products, and so on, which can make a considerable impact all over the world. Towards this end a systematic action plan is inevitable globally by banning the plastic carry bags usage, ban the plastic products which cannot be recycled, incentive for business of recycling, adopting new technology for converting plastic waste into energy and so on.

By Dr. Himachalam Dasaraju

The World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is a day which is celebrated on 15^th March every year across the world to debate on a specific theme of world importance and to promote consumer rights and awareness among consumers. It is an appropriate platform to debate and review, what consumers globally want and put them at the mainstream of world development. 

The Consumer International (CI), a non-profit London-based consumer organization is organizing World Consumer Rights Day on March 15, of every year since 1983. It is in recognition of the promulgation of consumer rights by the then President of USA John F. Kennedy while addressing US congress on 15^th March 1962.  Since then world consumer rights day is being organized with a special focus on a specific theme like Fix Our Phone Rights (2014), Healthy Diets (2015), Antibiotics Off the Menu (2016), Better Digital World (2017), Making Digital Marketplaces Fairer (2018), Trusted Smart Products (2019) and Sustainable Consumer (2020) apart from promoting consumer rights across the world.

The theme for World Consumer Rights Day on March 15, 2021, is “Tackling Plastic Pollution”.

Plastic Pollution:

The Consumer International (CI) has announced the focal theme for this year’s debate on “Tackling Plastic Pollution” to raise awareness and engage consumers to review and promote more sustainable practices all over the world. Based on the last year’s theme ‘Sustainable Consumer’, the present social campaign will also focus on the role that the consumer advocates, businesses; governments can play an effective role in tackling the menace of global plastic pollution.On this WorldConsumerRightsDay(15March2021), it is proposed to join together all the consumer organizations around the world tocall forglobal changes to avert environmental breakdown and to tackle plastic pollution, which is a great threat to global wellbeing. It is the dire need of the day to resolve the crises of plastic pollution to diffuse the climate change and loss of biodiversity the world over.

The decade of 2020is the lastchancetolimitglobalwarmingto1.5csincepre-industrialtimes,inlinewiththeParisAgreement,andto reversethecurrenttrendofwide-scalebiodiversityloss. Global warming is a serious threat to global wellbeing, causing lots of impediments on the climatic conditions, human health, food security, biodiversity, and sustainability of the global economic activity. The unusual change and increase in precipitation, melting glaciers, and expanding Seas have a deleterious impact on the global climate resulting in abrupt climate changes, high incidents of floods, storms, hurricanes, and human health. One of the root causes for all these changes is excessive use of plastic and its pollution on the earth and ocean. Plastic has become an integral part of human consumption for a long and became inseparable from the economic activities of human life. The production and consumption of plastics, mostly single-use plastic are not sustainable and it is impacting badly on our ecosystems, causing negative environmental threats at both local and international and human health impediments.

It’s considered as one of the major causes of the global climatic change and estimated that plastic could emit 56 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 14 percent of the earth’s remaining carbon budget by 2020. By 2100 it will emit around 260 billion tonnes, around half of the carbon budget. The plastic can be torn into small pieces, called microplastics, through biodegradation, exposure to sun, heat, and water. These micro-plastics scatter across the globe even to the depths of the ocean.The world produces around 380 million tonnes of new plastic every year and the global percentage of emissions from plastic production will hit 15 percent by 2050. Around 8 million tonnes of plastic enters the oceans every year, of which single-use plastics account for 50 percent of the plastic produced every year. It's estimated that there will be more plastic remains than the fish in the oceans by 2050. More than 100,000 marine mammals and 1 million sea birds are killed by plastic pollution in the seas annually. India generates 25,940 tonnes of plastic waste every day, of which 40 percent remains uncollected, badly reflecting on drainage and river systems disturbances, damaging the main ecosystem, pollution of soil and water and open-air burning leads to detrimental to human and environmental health.

There is an increasing concern about plastic pollution by consumers. According to a  global study in 2019, which found that there is a strong consumer response to plastic waste (with 82% of respondents using reusable cleaning utensils instead of single-use plastic alternatives, 72% bringing reusable bags when shopping, and 62% using refillable drinking bottles) – and despite the increased use of single-use plastic during the pandemic, 55% of consumers globally have now become more concerned about the environment as a result of COVID-19 and nearly 74% of consumers (in Europe, the US, and South America) are willing to spend more on sustainable packaging. Drastic change is required at all levels from governments, businesses, and standard setters to make tackling plastic pollution and sustainable consumption the easy choice for consumers.

It emphasized that the menace of plastic pollution is a big challenge that requires coordinated efforts of global participants and the global consumer movement should play a predominant role in tackling plastic pollution and promoting sustainable production and consumption of plastic the world over.It demands valorization of plastic waste through chemical recycling, composting, converting them into more useful products like materials, chemicals, fuels, and other sources of energy.

Millions of consumers arealready feeling the effects of climate change throughout the world. To protect the planet and provide fair social conditions for present and future generations, serious attention is needed on the way we produce and consume goods and services. In this stupendous endeavor the consumers have to play a key role, firstly, through their purchasing power, ability to push for system change in supply chains systems. Consumers are already making changes to their lifestyle to be more sustainable – recycling and reducing food waste, avoiding unsustainable products, and so on, which can make a considerable impact all over the world. Towards this end a systematic action plan is inevitable globally by banning the plastic carry bags usage, ban the plastic products which cannot be recycled, incentive for business of recycling, adopting new technology for converting plastic waste into energy and so on.

Representational Image Courtesy - Citizenmatters.in 

About the Author:

The author Dr. HimachalamDasaraju is a Professor of Commerce (Retd) at Sri Venkateswara University. He is a Commonwealth Visiting Fellow at Essex Business School, Essex University, UK, and former Senior Fellow and Professor Emeritus. Now he is working on an international project “Carbon Accounting and Auditing in France and India” in collaboration with the University of Bordeaux, France. Contact - dhchalam@gmail.com