The scientific community participating in the IV International Conference MICRO 2022 on “Plastic Pollution: from macroplastics to nanoplastics”, which was held between November 14 and 18, has issued a new ‘Lanzarote Declaration’ that has been sent to the UN Secretary General.
This document synthesizes the most relevant scientific advances and evidence presented during this biennial conference, with the aim of being taken into account in the elaboration of the UN Treaty to stop plastic pollution.
Organized by the World Network of Island and Coastal Biosphere Reserves and the Marine Sciences For Society research network under the sponsorship of UNESCO, MICRO has its center of gravity in the Lanzarote Biosphere Reserve since its first edition in 2016. This year, it brought together more than 2,500 researchers around 40 local nodes and 500 presentations, whose conclusions have been collected in the new ‘Lanzarote Declaration’.
“Plastic pollution affects us all. It is a human problem, not an environmental one, that has an impact on human health and also on the structure and functioning of our societies,” the scientific community points out in the document.
Thus, it requests that all sectors be represented and involved in the negotiations of the UN Treaty, which they hope will “be legally binding and adopted by all signatory countries” and that it will serve to establish “objectives and deadlines for plastic reduction, as well as guidance on how to achieve them.”
In this sense, the Scientific Committee of MICRO 2022, on behalf of all participants, calls for “ambitious, transparent and responsible” actions to address plastic pollution and makes a call for collaboration within and between the scientific community and stakeholders “to identify, evaluate and implement interventions” that serve to stop plastic pollution.
