Environment Day 2018 Date: History, Theme, Significance, Celebrations & the Host Country for this Year

World Environment Day is a UN Environment-led global event, the single largest celebration of our environment each year, which takes place on June 5 and is celebrated by thousands of communities worldwide. It was first celebrated in the year 1972 and has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated across the globe. The chosen theme for this year’s edition is ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ and is asking the world to come together to combat single-use plastic pollution.

Theme & Significance

The theme for World Environment Day 2018, ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ 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. Most of all, World Environment is a day of everyone around the world to take ownership of their environment and to actively engage in the protection of our earth.

Host Country for This Year

In February, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Erik Solheim, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Head of UN Environment, jointly announced that India will be hosting the global World Environment Day celebrations on June 5, 2018. “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. Vardhan. According to UN Environment, the focus on the host country helps highlight the environmental challenges it faces and supports the effort to address them.

Celebrations

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 initiate by setting an example. By hosting World Environment Day 2018, the Indian government is accelerating its leadership on an issue of tremendous magnitude.

The statistics of plastic pollution caused globally is shocking. Every year the world uses 500 billion plastic bags and at least eight million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, the equivalent of full garbage truck every minute. 50% of the plastic consumed on daily basis is single-use or disposable. Plastic makes up to 10% of all the waste we generate and people buy one million plastic bottles every minute.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 01, 2018 09:34 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).