Earth Day 2024: 'Planet vs Plastics' a more timely theme than ever - ahead of global treaty negotiations

We’re eating it, breathing it in, and absorbing it - and Earth Day 2024 aims to make sure everyone in the world knows just how much of a threat plastic poses to our health.

Monday (22 April) is Earth Day, a worldwide event encouraging people across the globe to take action to protect the planet. It has taken place on this date every year since 1970, and in recent years it has typically adopted a specific environmental issue as a theme. In the past, these themes have included water quality, climate literacy, planting trees, and raising awareness of species facing extinction.

This year’s theme is ‘People vs Plastic’, and it comes just one day before the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution is set to meet in Canada, where members will spend the week discussing the latest draft of a global plastics treaty. Here’s everything you need to know about Earth Day 2024, and its ambitious call to action:

What is the ‘People vs Plastic’ campaign about?

This is not the first time Earth Day has had a plastic-oriented theme. However, 2024’s focus is on the impacts plastics (in particular, microplastics) and plastic additives are having on human bodies and health. Microplastics are tiny plastic pieces less than 5mm long, formed as plastic products begin to break down. Researchers have found them everywhere from deep sea trenches, to once-pristine Antarctic snow, to human blood.

The ‘Planet vs Plastics’ theme advocates for wider public awareness on the health risk plastics pose, which studies suggest are both numerous, and not fully understood. One study found that the microplastics detected in our blood may be linked with strokes, heart attacks and early death, Sky News reports, while other studies have linked plastics and the chemicals added to them during manufacturing to increased risks of Type 2 diabetes, dementia, and hormonal imbalances (with some of these chemicals mimicking and disrupting hormones in the human body).

In one US study, microplastics were found in every single placenta tested, leading to fears over what impact they could be having on developing babies, the Guardian reports. Research has also suggested that microplastics may directly harm the cells in our bodies, causing inflammation and damage when eaten or breathed in.

In a statement last year announcing the 2024 theme, organisers said plastics are a grave threat to human health as alarming as climate change. “The word environment means what surrounds you. Now plastics do more than surround us - we have become the product itself. It flows through our blood stream, adheres to our internal organs, and carries with it heavy metals known to cause cancer and disease,” Earth Day president Kathleen Rogers said. “Now this once-thought amazing and useful product has become something else, and our health and that of all other living creatures hangs in the balance.”

What are Earth Day organisers calling on the public to do this year?

Organisers EARTHDAY.ORG - previously known as the Earth Day Network - have one key demand this year. They are calling for a 60% reduction in the production of all plastics by 2040, a goal they would like to see enshrined in law by the upcoming UN global plastics treaty.

The non-profit has also created a list of ways members of the public can take action on plastics this Earth Day. These include signing the organisation’s petition calling for a more ambitious global plastics treaty, or taking its ‘plastic detox’ social media challenge by trying to avoid single use plastics in your day-to-day life. EARTHDAY.ORG is also calling for people to write to Dow - a US chemical company estimated to be the third largest plastic producer in the world - and ask them to release any studies or information they have on the health impacts associated with the full life cycle of plastics.

If you have some free time on Monday, you can also look for an Earth Day event near you using the interactive map on this webpage - no matter where in the world you are.

What is the global plastics treaty?

In March 2022, the UN’s Environment Assembly agreed that plastic pollution was becoming such a big problem, that it needed to develop an international, legally-binding treaty - including in the world’s oceans. Representatives from different member states formed the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, and it has met three times since then to discuss the terms of the new agreement.

The group’s fourth meeting begins on Tuesday (23 April) in Ottawa, Canada, and will run until 29 April. Members will be discussing the latest draft of the new treaty. There will also be a fifth meeting held in Busan, South Korea, starting 25 November.

This year’s meetings are particularly important, as the 175 nations which voted in favour of a worldwide plastics treaty also agreed on an accelerated timeline - so it could be implemented as soon as 2025. This means the aim is to have negotiations wrapped up and the treaty’s final wording agreed upon by 2024.

The UN says that plastic pollution across the world is still rapidly increasing, and represents a serious global environmental issue - one which negatively impacts the environmental, social, economic and health aspects of its sustainable development goals. Under a business-as-usual scenario and without any intervention, it estimated that the amount of plastic waste entering our oceans and waterways could nearly triple by 2040, from an estimated 9-14 million tonnes in 2016, to a projected 23-37 million tonnes.