“An estimated 13 per cent of the waste stream in Kiribati is comprised of plastic, which equates to 9.7 tons every day.”

The following Keynote Address by H.E. Mr. TEBURORO TITO, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Kiribati to the United Nations and Ambassador of Kiribati to the U.S., which was delivered at the Third United Nations Ocean Conference’s (Nice, France, June 9 – 13, 2025) as an official virtual side event #V66, titled, “#UNOC3 New Ways To Effectively Scale Plastic Recycling ~ Societal Change for the Collection of Plastic Can Create Significant Impacts,” which was delivered by Bircan Ünver on June 13, 2025, on behalf due to an Internet connection issue.

[LMGlobal.Org] I am honoured to share some thoughts on a very important issue facing a small island developing state like Kiribati. I am therefore thankful to Madam Bircan and her organization, the Light Millennium, for this opportunity to participate in this virtual side event and to contribute to this global conversation on how the world should deal with the fast growing threat of plastic pollution which has started to threaten not only the health and wealth lof the oceans but also the health and livelihood of people who depend heavily on the resources provided by the oceans.

Let me start by introducing Kiribati for those who are not yet familiar with the country I represent.

Kiribati is a very large ocean state (811,2 km²) with an EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) of 3.5 million sq.km, located along the equator line at the center of the Pacific Ocean comprising 33 islands grouped in three archipelagos: the 17 islands in the western part called the Gilbert Islands, 8 islands in the middle making up the Phoenix islands and another 8 islands in the Eastern part called the Line Islands.

Kiribati is a member of the Commonwealth, the IMF, and the World Bank. It joined the United Nations in 1999, twenty years after it achieved independence from Great Britain. A very large part of its revenue (about 70%) is derived from tuna fishing access fees for fishing nations, including the USA, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Spain, and others. 

Kiribati was declared by UN Secretary General Kofi Hanan in September 1999 to be the first country to enter the new millennium and the first to enter each new day, thereafter.

Plastic pollution has been identified by the Kiribati Government as the top waste stream needing urgent priority attention within the Kiribati Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy 2020-2030. An estimated 13 per cent of the waste stream in Kiribati is comprised of plastic, which equates to 9.7 tons every day. With limited resources and a lack of technical capacity, and minimal treatment options to dispose of such waste, much waste ends up in the very small number of landfills that were created on the Capital island more than 10 years ago, which will soon be filled up and turned into residential areas.

Fortunately the South Pacific REgional Environment Programme (SPREP) with the generous funding of the Australian Government has kindly supported the efforts of the Government through the Kiribati Ministry of Environment, Land and Agricultural Development (MELAD) to develop strategies for fighting the plastic pollution problem head on at the local, national and regional levels. At the regional level, Kiribati joins the Pacific Islands Forum’s call for a legally binding international instrument to reduce plastic pollution and eventually eliminate it. At the global level, the Permanent Mission of Kiribati to the United Nations fully supports the initiative of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) for the formulation of an international Treaty to regulate the production and use of plastic.

The most difficult part here, as evidenced in the various negotiations within the intergovernmental negotiations Committee (INCs) that have taken place during the past two years, is the reluctance of countries that have invested billions of dollars in the production of plastics from petroleum products to modify their industries to produce more environmentally friendly plastics. Such a reluctance to restructure or re-adapt their industries has become the major obstacle to arriving at a mutually agreed position to go ahead with a Treaty on Plastic Pollution.

I look forward to learning much about how we can, as a human family work together to provide a good balance between the production, the use and the disposal of plastics in a way that can restore the good Harmony between People, Development and Nature, knowing very well that a a lack of harmony between the three can lead to disastrous consequences as we are already witnessing on a daily basis with the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution attributed to the increasing disharmony between PEOPLE, DEVELOPMENT AND NATURE, driven by the insatiable human greed for wealth power and glory.  

Thank you.

ABSTRACT
Today’s mismanaged plastic waste is over 18 million tons/year, much of which impacts over two billion people a day with poor water quality, health issues, ecosystem, tourism, ocean impacts, fishing, and agriculture, among others.  At the same time, the wide range of communities and countries that are most impacted by plastic pollution, which they either create due to a lack of infrastructure and resources or which their neighbors create, do not have many choices for improved collection and recycling.  Their waste adds a higher per-capita impact to the environment than does plastic in big cities, which often gets collected, but at the same time, societal improvements and program changes that need not cost a lot and bring trust to communities mean that positive impacts are higher per-capita than those in larger communities.  Recycling is not broken, but it has not been correctly implemented.   Learn from our expert panel on how communities around the world can be part of reducing plastic pollution at scale, with the ocean and our waters as one of the main end beneficiaries. 

#UNPlasticTreaty: https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution

Booklet of the #V66 Virtual Session at the #UNOC3 (PDF)

https://www.sprep.org