ISLAMABAD: Senator Sherry Rehman on Wednesday called for urgent global and national action to combat plastic pollution, warning that the crisis could no longer be treated merely as a waste-management problem.
Speaking at the ICEPP Parliamentary Exchange on Plastic Pollution on Tuesday, she said the entire lifecycle of plastics, from fossil-fuel extraction and production to consumption, disposal and leakage into the environment, needed to be addressed.
“More than nine billion tons of plastic has been generated worldwide since the 1950s,” she said.
She added that the undocumented figure could be higher as the economics of the plastics industry had enabled a crisis of global proportions.
Companies placing plastic products, packaging on the market should share responsibility for disposal, says Senator
According to a statement issued here, Sherry Rehman said recycling alone could not resolve the problem as plastic production and consumption continued to increase.
Citing OECD data, she said only about 9pc of plastic waste globally had been successfully recycled, while the rest was landfilled, incinerated or leaked into the environment.
She also linked plastic pollution with climate change, saying plastic production contributed around 3.4pc of global greenhouse gas emissions and most single-use plastics were made from fossil-fuel feedstocks.
Turning to Pakistan, she said the country had legislation and policies on single-use plastics but faced a major gap in enforcement and compliance.
“Pakistan’s journey with single-use plastics has been very disappointing. We have legislation, we have policies and we have made commitments, but the enforcement gap is huge,” she said.
She said the absence of affordable alternatives at scale remained a major obstacle, while Pakistan’s inadequate waste-management infrastructure was struggling to cope with growing volumes of plastic.
Sherry Rehman called for a transparent national system to track plastic production, imports, consumption, collection, recycling, disposal and leakage into the environment. Without reliable data, she said, it was difficult to regulate the sector or hold producers accountable.
She also called for effective implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility, arguing that companies placing plastic products and packaging on the market should share responsibility for their disposal.
“Those who put plastic into the market must also take responsibility for what happens to it after consumption,” she said.
The event highlighted the growing threat to Pakistan’s rivers, particularly the Indus, observing that plastic waste was entering waterways and eventually reaching the Arabian Sea. Microplastics and nanoplastics could move through water systems, ecosystems and food chains.
The gathering urged Parliament to strengthen legislation, enforcement and producer responsibility while ensuring affordable alternatives to single-use plastics.
“Greenwashing cannot substitute for accountability,” Sherry Rehman said, adding that Pakistan needed both national enforcement and international cooperation to address the plastics crisis.
She said plastic pollution, climate change, public health and infrastructure resilience were interconnected challenges and warned that vulnerable countries should not be left to bear the environmental costs of a problem driven by global production and consumption.
Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2026
