This Thursday marks World Environment Day, an annual awareness day born out of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It’s the largest global platform for environmental outreach, and this year’s theme focuses on a monster issue: ending plastic pollution.

It’s hard to truly wrap your head around how much plastic waste humans create every year. According to the UN, we produce 400 million-plus tons of plastic every year — that’s enough to fill more than a million garbage trucks!

Things weren’t always this way. I remember when I was in high school, it seemed absurd to spend $1 to pay for water that would be gone in a few swigs — and plastic waste that would lurk for centuries. Fast forward nearly 30 years, and it’s virtually impossible to avoid plastic.

For example, consider all of the plastic that goes into constructing this healthy meal: Organic lettuce sold in blocky plastic containers, feta cheese wrapped in plastic film, vinegar and olive oil housed in single-use plastic bottles, tomatoes sold in clamshell plastic, and baby carrots in a throwaway plastic bag. And that doesn’t even factor in a drink.

It’s not hard to see that Americans produce the most plastic waste in the world. Still, public polling shows that most people want to solve this problem. According to a 2024 World Wildlife Federation survey, 85% of people strongly agree that plastic waste pollution is a serious and concerning problem that requires immediate attention. Nearly as many feltpositive about a new global agreement to stop plastic pollution, with 84 percent believing companies should be responsible for the plastic waste they create.

This is great news! At a time when it seems like Americans are more divided than ever, here’s something we can all (mostly) agree on!

Part of the problem is that plastic seems so cheap. Globally, governments subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of $7 trillion a year, making the packaging artificially cheap for manufacturers. But here’s the big but — it doesn’t factor in the huge health consequences of unleashing plastic into our everyday lives.

According to the UN, about 11 million tons of plastic waste leaks into water ecosystems annually, with microplastics in the seas one outnumbering stars in our galaxy. The estimated annual cost of this damage is up to $600 billion. Scientists now confirm that tiny bits of microscopic plastic fragments can be found in human brains, blood vessels, livers and even placenta.

Clearly, things have gotten out of hand. Here are some ways the UN suggests tackling this monumental problem at every level of society.

Individual actions

● Use your voice and choice to let politicians know that you care about the plastic pollution issue and that they should too.● Move away from purchasing over-packaged products.● Purchase items with extended warranties that can be repairedinstead of replaced.

Higher-level solutions

● Eliminate problematic, unnecessary and harmful plastic packaging by embracing redesign, innovation, and new delivery models.● Ensuring 100% of plastic packaging produced is reusable, recyclable or compostable.● Encourage plastic reuse through extended producer responsibility and deposit-return schemes.● Create a regulatory framework with clear targets that ensures all aspects of the plastic life cycle approach are addressed.● Encourage reuse models where relevant.

● Invest in and scaling up waste management infrastructure to ensure plastic waste is properly collected, sorted, and recycled.● Embrace a common framework that includes national, regional and sector, and solution-specific targets in design standards for reuse and recycling, plastic labeling, and global trade cooperation.● Commit to initiatives like the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment and the Global Partnership on Plastic Pollution and Marine Litter.● Promote the development of national and regional communication and advocacy campaigns that engage the public and inspire consumers to make concerted social and behavior changes to address the plastic pollution crisis.

For more information, visit www.unep.org/beatpollution/beat-plastic-pollution.