exports that local government officials say this isn't about the money. no wonder if i could hold tryng tall. he insists ruling shows the u. s. has disregarded international trade rules, attempted to impose discriminatory and unfair treatment and unreasonably suppressed, hong kong products by politicizing, economic and trade issues. but while hong kong may have won the battle, it hasn't yet won the war. the u. s. says that the will trade organization ruling is flawed and the didn't no longer use hong kong a separate enough from china to justify having separate trading benefits. international trade experts say the stand off may be hard to resolve because of problems with the w t o is appeals process. the appellate body system is not functioning, but the system still allows parties to appeal. and so what we say is that they appeal in to the voyage. ah, certain members have set up a temporary alternative arbitration system as a workaround. on kong, as

a member of that system at the u. s. is not uncommon. manufacturers are hoping for a speedy conclusion to the political wrangling, so they can focus on getting their post pandemic business back on track. richard kimber, al jazeera hong kong. ah, you're watching out there are. these are the top stories. human rights watch is released, it's 2023 report looking at the conditions of human rights in more than a 100 countries. it says unchecked power across the world is leading to abuses and violations. for robinson is deputy asia director at human rights watch. if we look at what's happening in afghanistan for women and girls, and we look at what's happened, obviously in ukraine with the russian invasion, the situation across the world unfortunately has gotten worse. but we're also saying is, is the responsibility of many other governments. the not that the additional

government cared about human rights from the european union, north america, but governments from latin america, from africa, from middle east, other places to also step up and do something about human rights to recognize that they have an important role in promoting human rights and protecting human rights and not leave it to others. the policy ministry of health says that israeli forces of killed a palestinian man in the occupied westbank. 41 year old already osland was shot in the columbia county. the ramallah during a dorm raid policy in an official se salon was trying to defend his son during an arrest. last lunch, the 3rd palestinian to be killed. the occupied westbank in 24 hours and the 7th to be killed by a straight forces this year. the u. s. and japan of announced plans to expand military cooperation, calling china the greater security challenge in the region. they've agreed to re adjust the u. s. military presence and ok. now we're giving it the capability to target ships, german police, a back in the village of lute seraph's,

where they continue to evict climate actress for 2nd day. the protest is don't want the village to be demolished, to make way for a coal mine. under the buildings a crumbling and sinking of the indian himalayan town of josh mouth is being blamed . a long stop construction of the area and the changing environment. ok, those the headlines. the news continues here. an outage was era off to the stream. stay with us for that. the latest news as it breaks, also novel supporters across the country. they don't take to the streets until they talk over government with detailed coverage since land reform, when commercial forms were seized from white and given to floods. and bobby, and some of their land is not being fully utilized from around the world. the newly formed or locked should grow holes. christmas grows here for the 1st time. ah.

i for me. okay, thanks for joining me on the stream today. we are looking at plastic pollution and what is being done about it. so even if you make a conscious effort not to buy plastic products, you can't escape them because we have plastics inside of us. i will tell you how much in the next half an hour. but 1st, let's find out how we got to this situation. i'm going to take you back to the 1950s since 19 fifties people for an away war than 6300000000 tons of plastic. that's according to a stunt study that was done in 2017 globally every year. people throw away about 400000000 tons of plastic lace every single year. according to the o. e. c. d. plastic waste is on track to almost triple by 2060 with about half ending up in landfills. what do we do about that?

i know you've got suggestions. i know you've got solutions. be part of today show the comment section is right here. and looking forward to your computer. ah. hello, erica hello, steve. hello, satera. who is so good to have you? how much plastic is too much for our planet? we're going to get into that and then some. but 1st of all, erica, please say hello to our viewers around the world. tell them who you are and what you do. well, 1st of all, thanks for having me for me. my name's erica serino. i'm journalist and author of the book, thicker than water. the quest for solutions for the plastic crisis, and based in the united states. nice to have the allies, the welcome to the stream. tell you what you, what you day. i mean everybody. my name is steve fletcher. i'm the director of the global plastics policy center university, portsmouth, on the south of england. we undertake evidence base analysis of classics policies.

i'm also remember the, an international resource piano and an editor in chief of a new publication called cambridge prisms, plastics that shows research the tries to solve the global plastics from. i great you can say, how does that refer nice to have a welcome to the stream, tell us who you are and what you do if any, hello everybody. and so by shaker, i work with a briefly from plastic movement, a global movement that envision of plastic free future. we basically work to bring systemic change through a holistic approach, settling plastic solution across the entire plastic valley team. and we focus on prevention rather than your and providing effective solution. all right. speed round for all of the guest. erica micro plastics. in a sentence. explain. plastics. never benignly bowed. agreed or break down. they only break up into smaller and smaller pieces of toxic plastic

. that's how i would explain micro plastic steve nano plastics in a sentence go even smaller than micro plastics and they can get into places that even micro classics column mainly into our bodies in trouble of streams of breastmilk. that's what yikes. okay, so how much plastics do you think we have in our body? oh gosh, that, that's a super tricky question. her research in this area is pretty new. i mean it's really hard to say for me. thatcher. upa bio plastics in a sentence. tell us it basically a plastic that is made partially from materials like but ito starch upon starch. but eventually functions just like plastic, it has just as many chemicals and is extremely toxic. ah, okay. i spoiler alert right there. what is known about plastics?

water, we know, or what do we not know that we should know? i'm going to go to some of your colleagues, steve, at the university of portsmouth, who cooked a lovely christmas dinner. and one christmas dinner they made with products that were all wrapped up in plastic. and another christmas dinner they may with products that were not wrapped up in plastic. let's see how that experiment went. so we looked at a plastic wrapped dinner and a non plastic wrap dinner and we cook them to see how many micro plastics were in them. and we found 7 times more micro plastics in the wrapped dinner than the non wrapped dinner. if you were eaten an equivalent wrapped dinner every day for a year, you'd be eating about 10 grams of plastic. that's the equivalent of 2 of these a year. see, i don't know what i should be alarmed about that is just the i didn't. i'm not thinking about the plastics in my body,

but i'm alive. i'm doing the show. i'm walking and talking around. is this a red flag that we should be doing something about stevie start and then i'm going to go round out round her to our other guests as well. yes, it is a total red flag for me. i mean, the reality is we don't know what harm classic inside our body is doing not definitively an element of common sense suggest it's not good. and so you might wanna take a precautionary approach where we say, well, until we know that this is harmless, we should stop or at least we should reduce our exposure to passage in our homes and in our food. that would be a cautionary sets, booklet, still, slightly distracted there by a plastic bag being put into an oven. but i'm going to go only go to erica, erica, you traveled the world looking out. what do we know? what should we know about nano? plastics are a micro plastics and what the dangers are, what would you say was the biggest,

what there is going on moment that you had while definitely crossing the grey pacific garbage patch was a big wake up call. and this was in 2016 when the global consciousness about plastic was really focus more on the problem framed as a marine litter issue or kind of pollution in the ocean, which now we know as far from the only place are plastic blue plastic boots everywhere, including inside of our bodies, but in that reporting and research, i realize that these little particles in the ocean were breaking up into pieces and being consumed by the wild life living there. an almost unimaginable scale. and a main problem with this is that these pieces of plastic contain toxic chemicals in these chemicals are already known to interfere with human hormones. animal hormones, they may cause accumulation of toxins, body that lead to ill effects over time. so this research is better known in wildlife, but because humans are also animals, we should be very concerned at this point. knowing what we know now about the ill

effects which are very deadly in many cases. but really for multiple conversations going on about now what we do refresh, and there is a huge industry, huge manufacturing, industry, fashion, industry tactics, industry that you can have to have conversations with you in those conversations. how are they going? i think last fall we need to remember that plastics as basically fossil fuel and chemicals. there's more than $10000.00 chemicals in plastic. and we actually know the effects that these chemicals have on human and animal life. and, you know, it's, it's interesting to see that it's, those industries that are continuing to promote the production, you know, even the extraction of fossil fuel to production of the polymers that go into making plastics. and then continue to promote, you know, what we called hold solutions in how we manage plastic waste. these are,

these can range from incinerators and waste energy plans to just cement kilns and what we're finding across the world. in issue, if you've been running studies, even chickens that, you know, just are feeding off ones are in the, in the very near vicinity of pleasant man. and to have dioxin of beings that are living very close to the same income. right? so this is a very, very direct transfer of the chemicals from plastics right into our bodies. and there is actually a lot we can do. we really need to have basic and progressive and mandatory, kept on production of fossil fuel. the plastics we need to control. i think the whole solution or unicorns, we keep treating ideals with how plastic and managed it really cannot be managed. i

think what erica talked about was just the, the soap of lisa. it's in our bodies. we cannot avoid the kinds of chilled to be where the water we drink in salt. it's an honey it's. it's an everything ingesting consciously, but also we just, you know, if interpret is in, before us companies are very consciously making the choice to ads plus the micro plus the micro b into products every, the products that we really just kind of void. that thing like very clean. yeah. think i had, i had a have so i'm sure you'll feel is much smaller than minds and you go fast ahead just because i'd really such recruit was saying really, historically the, the, the solutions to plastic question have been seen as what was called downstream. so the plastic has already been crated and scapes into the world. and we think pro solutions like recycling or,

or collecting plastic and putting into landfill is plastic management. but that doesn't really prevent the pollution and the sorts of dire consequences that century was just explaining. and i'm sure we've all got got stories like that so that there's a sort of list of terrible problems. but what we really need to be doing is, is putting in place upstream solutions as problems solution, sorry, prevent the plastic question. the 1st place, not the try. and so the question just become pollution is too late by the way to talking to me throughout this flight where michael and your foot comes together. we are we talking about the nest products, beads in little bits of plastic in and they explode it, your skin or they help clean better. so we just say, let's just not put them and create them in the 1st place. that would be simple when that yeah, you think so? yeah. so a global agreement to remove those sorts of plastics from products would be would

be wonderful. and we don't need those plastic to be in those products. really. there will be natural alternatives or just other ways to achieve the same outcome. so we have to really find ways to prevent plastic entering the the economy are entering the food chain or entering us in whatever way we kind of stopping them getting into the products. the 1st place would, would be, you know, the august 1st that there is a global plastics treaty which feels like this would be a good place for the world to come together and say, this is how we want our well to be. we do not need this much plastic. erica, just before i play a little clip from a gathering the happening oral g y, which was a just a few weeks ago at the end of the year. what does the public need to know about the global plastics treaty? what is important about that, what's in point about this treaty is that we need to make sure it's strong, enforceable, and covers the full toxic existence of plastic. from the moment its fossil fuel

ingredients are pulled from the ground to its end use. and after its and use when it's either disposed by incineration illegal dumping into a landfill or the environment or some other means. and as a director and steve mentioned, there are a lot of fall solutions now on the table. and one key for solution i want to identify is so called advanced or chemical recycling, which is just a process whereby plastics are kind of melted down in a way in to more simple petrochemical and fossil fuel components. and typically not even turned into plastic again. so not recycled but burned as a petrochemical or a fossil fuel type product. and so we need to keep those 4 solutions out of the global plastics treaty and have a hard hitting piece of a hearty agreement that kind of will show us all the way we need to move forward and at the core have values that lead to more regenerative sustainable and just

world i said that this is a very tough negotiation because it's real policy and, and asking for certain plastics and certain production methods to be just the fact that band them. so this is in get anderson, she's the executive director of the united nations environment program. and she was at the global plastics treaty this gathering. he sitting next to the minister environment for orac. why? and this is what she told. a press conferences have a listen and it is a bishop to n plastic pollution, but it is entirely doable. it is in our hands. and i am very optimistic that we can work on the base of science on the basis of strong national leadership to deliver an agreement text by the end of 2 years. it's complicated. we have chemicals, we have industry, we have interest rates for everyone. everyone wants plastic out of the environment,

such as if i was in oak, ryan, i was watching the conversations between a multi stake holders. scuse me fitting un speak just for a moment, which means everybody can have a saying what is going on. and there were people there from the industry, the past, this industry and some of the other stakeholders were very upset that they were in the room, having the conversation. do they not provide a route to finding a solution if they come with a genuine sense of how can we do better or do we not need to have a plastics industry? are we asking for them to wrap themselves up? you know, so for me, oh oh boy. as well. oh oh, oh such a ripper. i'm so sorry. i'm gonna,

we're gonna call you back cuz we've got a little bit of a problem with your connection. so i'm gonna call you back and, and i'll just hold that response for a moment. but let me just go to erica on this because i know you've been reporting on this as well. about what do you do with the big plastics industry? are they? are they genuinely wanting to say, how do we, how do we improve the situation, or is it a little bit like tobacco, the sequel all, unfortunately, we're seeing a kind of repeat of tobacco the sequel. and in fact, people involved in the tobacco negotiations warned people involved now in the plastics negotiations that the industry is trying the same tactics. and we do see the same repetitiveness in the narrative as well. so, you know, putting that together, it's painting a very clear picture that the foxes in house i know audience if we think in steve, what about we cycling? what about bio plastics?

i lost i lost that to revisit bio plastics. 8 i work. they did. they just create a problem to like know that that's not gonna work, but what, what will work? what are you working on? what are you researching that can be practical solutions? yeah, it's a good question for me. what were researching at the moment is really trying to understand where the plastic life cycle, which radical and progressive policy really make a difference to reducing plastic police really achieve substantial reduction in plastic notion on what we're finding is it looked like i said before, it's really focusing on upstream solutions. so essentially 2 things. one is to reduce plastic entering the economy in the 1st place. so that substituting property out, it's reducing our reliance on prostate. it's encouraging reuse schemes that prevents the reduce, sorry, the amount of prostate that we need in the 1st place. so that's the 1st thing.

reducing plastic entry, the economy. and the 2nd thing is i want plastic isn't the economy. then we make sure that classic is the sort of class that we really need and that that plastic can be reused and circulated in the economy for as long as possible. so we begin to the couple of economic and social activity from a reliance upon virgin plastics because the virgin plastic crate, tremendous fossil fuels and the also come from the mission. so this coverage mission and ultimately tend to become the plastic pollution at the future. i'm going to go to youtube and bring such a rooper backing. we've got a stable connection now. cow marston says, i guess my main point is how to governments even confront these large multinational companies like netflix pepsico, coca cola as a companies that reapers, if you are going to have to, as an activist or somebody who's talking to these,

these big, these big plastic polluters how others can bring them plastic? yeah. oh, well mixed up, you know, it's usually one step forward and many steps back. the, the breakthrough from plastic movement has been conducting brand audits for 5 years . and we know who the pollutants are. we know what some of their tactics are to distract and the real progress on policy. we have evidence where they are actually very, you know, systematically undermining fe, progressive policies. just one case for that i'd like to refer to india had a clause in the solid base management group of 2016 with said that mentally. plastics would be banned or eliminated by 2018. we actually know companies, uletha nestle and the others who have lobbied for that close to be removed. right?

so we're actually moving backward despite knowing that she is and monthly a packaging is basically, you know, there's nothing that one can do about it. at the same time would be having is going to leave a had launched something called korea solve. eric, i mentioned advanced recycling or chemical recycling the launcher, with a lot of fanfare. and then they closed within 2 years after millions of dollars a lot spread. so you see a what, how is that also how many millions several millions, i'm sorry, i just don't have it on hand but you know, they wanted in the media. they try to convince a lot of governments that, that is feasible. oh, it is not. the other thing that you know, steve was talking about was reuse projects, the launch projects, but they only pilots. they never fail, they don't allow them to scale up. all right, so, so a quick answer hand at the lyla arkwin you, let's do this one here from the chip. what about a past tax? plastics tax?

no. all that's difficult, but we can implement producer responsibility schemes that require corporations to take back the plastics that they produce or be find that help financially or logistically responsible. but i don't think it would be ever fair to tax people because they're not creating the pollution in the industry. for me, in our research, we found that a positive touch by itself doesn't necessarily create the change you want to see, but the closet touch can reinforce. busy of policies. so for example, if we wanted to substitute out plastic for less looting material, then we could put a tax on budget plastics that would make the substitute more economically attractive to a certain industry. so touch my stuff doesn't really do the job, but the touch with a collection or suite of other policies actually. right. but we took earlier to data. michelle barry, i'm just going to bring her voice in because i think she sums up where we are with

our conversation right now. today. he says, well, we can only recycle our way out of the global plastic problem. we need economic practices that reimagine supply chains to decrease single use plastics. and we need to financially incentivize plastic collection and recycling. we need technologic innovation to do a better cleanup of michael plastic pollution so that we're not consuming the equivalent of a plastic credit card in one weeks time. that you have a real quick response from our audience here watching right now you cannot build a cell phone with the last you have to have plastic instant response to that view. we can think about how long that is used or do we really need to use it so you know, so frequently replaced things so frequently i think what steve was also saying,

i think was also once it's in the system, how do we make sure that it is in the system as long as possible, right? if we really need some kinds of plastic, then less privatized those. if it's for medical reasons, for example, why do we need, you know, single use disposable cutlery, which we can really do with that. yeah. and there are great alternatives to save. you going to say something? yeah, i think, yeah, it's hard to justify, i think for the brigand plastics and the economy that we know can be reuse that can't be recycle recovery effectively collected. but a toxic and good home people's health and how is that an acceptable position for the world to adopt? and so we have to really think really carefully about what is a necessary plastic and then maybe some necessary post. and so we have to upgrade. what is a plastic that we use? right? so if we've got a phone that said number whatever, why do you have the my,

the next let, this is mike, this is my bombay. why have to by the next level of fine only cuz the manufacturer taos, you have to you. not because you natalie meeting i this is my voice will not be the last face. the last coming on the shaft got one more pass him to bring in. and this is andrew. he's looking ahead to what is gonna happen in the world of plastic pollutions patient this year. this is what he tell us. what we're seeing now. plastics is not that the man issue is an issue of our supply driving use. an old classic production will continue to rise and currently equals 400000000 tons. that is the weight of $40000.00 eiffel towers per year. on the legal front expect to see more actions against polluters on the ground. so from brew mental justice and human rights, like the case fight, the squeak against the fruits company, the non in france, ford there continues failing to reduce their plastic footprint. by the end of the

year, i'm cautiously optimistic that we will see a draft of the international treaty sitting out measures to air cup and face down production consumption and use of plastics. and this is the current story that andreas was talking about. activists to frankfurt, film firm, the known as the use of plastics. maybe this is the future, may be the legal stick is what we need to have fewer lack of plastic in our environment. thank you to erica, to steve the such a rupa and to you for being part of today's program. appreciate you. phoenix time we. i generation of scared people, but very ambitious, very united,

very puts it and i'm very good that you've been made to be constant, right. now, but not for long, you will soon filled the sim, his, we field every day from cuba, hong kong, then uganda, 3 women grapple with the impact of their frontline activists. dear future children on a j 0 ah mm. with are they protect as old profiteers of free speech mosque is showing us how vulnerable space is online and truly are when they are controlled by billionaires

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