World Environment Day 2025: focus on plastic pollution

World Environment Day is celebrated every year on 5 June. Established by the United Nations in 1972 to promote global environmental awareness and action, this year it is dedicated to combating plastic pollution, with meetings and initiatives all over the world. The theme is no coincidence: in two months, from 5 to 14 August 2025, a global treaty on plastic pollution will be negotiated in Geneva.

In March 2022, during the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEP), a historic resolution was adopted to develop a legally binding international instrument to try to end plastic pollution, including in the marine environment: the path towards the Global Plastic Treaty was set in motion. An Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) was therefore set up to define the standard, with an approach that addresses the entire life cycle of plastics, including production, design and disposal. Three main points: reduce the amount of plastic produced each year, eliminate chemicals harmful to human health, and identify funds to help developing countries with waste management.

Negotiations started in the second half of 2022 and the last session was held in Busan (South Korea) in late 2024, the very country hosting World Environment Day 2025. No agreement was reached in Busan, due to opposition from a group of oil-producing countries, from which plastic is derived. Now eyes are shifting to Geneva.

In Italy, Ispra, the Italian institute for environmental protection and research, is engaged in various projects to combat plastic pollution, particularly at sea: "Every year, around 100 thousand mammals and one million seabirds die as a result of being trapped inside abandoned fishing nets or after ingesting the fragments they release into the sea," reads a note from the institute: "86% of the marine waste found on the seabed can be traced back to fishing activities, with a clear prevalence of abandoned, lost or decommissioned fishing lines, ropes and nets. Ghost nets therefore represent one of the most insidious forms of marine pollution'. And again: 'Their deterioration into tiny fragments generates, in addition, the release of microplastics that are ingested by animals and consequently end up in the food chain'.

Ispra is the implementing party of the Pnrr Mer (Marine Ecosystem Restoration) project: 400 million for various actions including the restoration and protection of marine habitats (such as the reconstruction of European flat oyster beds in Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Marche and Abruzzo, after an estimated 85% of the natural ones were lost), the identification and restoration of at least 15 areas where abandoned fishing and/or aquaculture gear has been located, the mapping of Italian coastal habitats (including updated mapping of posidonia oceanica) and marine ecosystems.