Plastic is forever...so it’s time to get clever about managing it!
That’s the slogan of the campaign by the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions (BRS Conventions).
The way out of the plastic pollution crisis is through the environmentally sound management of plastic waste. This principle guides the Plastic Waste Amendments, currently the sole legally binding international agreement on plastic waste.
The Plastic is Forever campaign was launched in 2021 with an exhibition of the finalists of the Plastic Waste Partnership photo competition. The competition invited people to highlight the role that plastic waste plays in their daily lives.
The campaign coincides with the Plastics Forum, a three-day multistakeholder event, which took place in Geneva from 8 to 10 June, during the meetings of the Conferences of the Parties to the BRS Conventions (BRS COPs).
The campaign included the Plastic is Forever social media challenge, an initiative that uses playfulness to involve youth in the fight against plastic pollution.
The challenge has two versions – plastic in the sea and plastic on mountains – and is available on Facebook and Instagram.
Running in parallel to the Plastics Forum side events is the Plastic is Forever hackathon, an event that brings together innovators from various backgrounds and challenges them to produce and pitch to the Forum audience prototype solutions that will help accelerate research and development in the field of plastic waste management.
On the last day of the Plastics Forum, the photo competition winners and the hackathon favourites were announced during a special ceremony.
Afterward, participants joined the media and the public for an illuminations show on the façade of the Palais des Nations.
The Conferences of the Parties to the BRS Conventions will conclude on Friday, 17 June 2022.
