Earth Day 2018: Reducing Plastic Litter and Pollution

April 22, 1970, was the day the modern environmental movement started. This day is celebrated worldwide every year as the Earth Day to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Various Earth Day events are held in more than 193 countries, which are now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network.

Earth Day is the world's largest secular observance being celebrated by over a billion people every year. It is the day of actions which bring the changes in human behavior towards the environment as well as provoke the changes in environmental policies worldwide.

This year, Earth Day 2018 focuses on Reducing Plastic Litter and Pollution.

The goals include:

• ending single-use plastics
• promoting alternatives to fossil fuel-based materials
• promoting 100% recycling of plastics
• corporate and government accountability
• changing human behavior concerning plastics

From poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our waste streams and landfills, the exponential growth of plastics is now threatening the survival of our planet.

In response, Earth Day 2018 will focus on mobilizing the world to End Plastic Pollution, including creating support for a global effort to eliminate single-use plastics along with global regulation for the disposal of plastics.

The End Plastic Pollution campaign by Earth Day Network includes four major components:

• Leading a grassroots movement to support the adoption of a global framework to regulate plastic pollution;
• Educating, mobilizing and activating citizens across the globe to demand that governments and corporations control and clean up plastic pollution;
• Educating people worldwide to take personal responsibility for plastic pollution by choosing to reject, reduce, reuse and recycle plastics, and
• Promoting local government regulatory and other efforts to tackle plastic pollution.

The Earth Day Network aims at building a worldwide society persuasive in the concepts of health and other risks associated with the use and disposal of plastics, including pollution of our oceans, water, and wildlife, and about the growing body of evidence that decomposing plastics are creating serious global problems. It is necessary to empower everyone with the knowledge to encourage action in protection of the environment.