India to host World Environment Day 2018 celebrations with 'Beat Plastic Pollution' theme

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India will host World Environment Day, 2018, scheduled to be held on June 5, with a ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ theme.

The announcement was made by Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Erik Solheim, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Head of UN Environment, at an event held in Delhi on Monday.

Beat Plastic Pollution, the theme for World Environment Day 2018, urges governments, industry, communities and individuals to come together and explore sustainable alternatives and urgently reduce the production and excessive use of single-use plastic polluting our oceans, damaging marine life and threatening human health.

“India is excited to host the World Environment Day this year on June 5. Indian philosophy and lifestyle has long been rooted in the concept of co-existence with nature. We are committed towards making Planet Earth a cleaner and greener place”, said Dr Harsh Vardhan.

“If each and every one of us does at least one green good deed daily towards our Green Social Responsibility, there will be billions of green good deeds daily on the planet,” he said.

The Government of India has committed to organising and promoting the World Environment Day celebrations through a series of engaging activities and events generating strong public interest and participation. From pan-Indian plastic clean-up drives in public areas, national reserves and forests, to simultaneous beach clean-up activities, India will lead the initiative by setting an example, a release said.

“India will be a great global host of 2018’s World Environment Day celebrations,” said Erik Solheim.

“The country has demonstrated tremendous global leadership on climate change and the need to shift to a low carbon economy, and India will now help galvanize greater action on plastics pollution. It’s a global emergency affecting every aspect of our lives. It’s in the water we drink and the food we eat. It’s destroying our beaches and oceans. India will now be leading the push to save our oceans and planet,” Solheim said.

World Environment Day is a UN Environment-led global event and is the single largest celebration of our environment each year. It takes place on June 5 and is celebrated by thousands of communities around the world.

Since it began in 1972, the event has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated across the globe.

Every year the world uses 500 billion plastic bags and each year, at least 8 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the oceans, the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute. Also, plastic constitutes up to 10 percent of all of the waste generated.