Observed every year, people around the world come together on June 5 to mark World Environment Day and raise awareness on urgent environmental challenges. Whether it’s excessive deforestation, impending climatic change, regular use of single-use plastic or depleting ground water, this day gives people a chance to reconsider how human activity affects the environment and motivates them choose a greener tomorrow.
This year, the communities, organisations, and governments, from all around the world have joined forces to raise awareness about increasing plastic waste. The theme this year is #BeatPlasticPollution.
#BeatPlasticPollution
In 2023, World Environment Day is coming forward with a focus on plastic, which is one of the biggest threats to the planet, under the campaign #BeatPlasticPollution. This year, the day will be hosted by Cote d’Ivoire in partnership with the Netherlands, which pledges to find solutions to plastic pollution.
If the stats are to be believed, more than 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year half of which is designed to be used only once. An estimated 19-23 million tonnes end up in lakes, rivers and seas. Today, plastic clogs our landfills, leaches into the ocean and is combusted into toxic smoke, making it one of the gravest threats to the planet. A trip to Delhi will show you how these landfills have become a prominent part in people‘s day to day life.
The aim of having particular days celebrating the environment is to refocus, realign our efforts and remind ourselves of everything we can do. As humans, we all need to remember what’s important and learn about new ways to make change. It’s like a using a birthday or a new year to write rules and look over past ones to see how they’re going. Gandhi ji rightly said “Be the change you want to see”.
