Plastic pollution: Expectations from the Global Treaty

Date: 05/12/2022

Relevance: GS-3: Environmental Pollution and Degradation; Plastic Pollution and Global Treaty.

Key Phrases: Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, United Nations Environment Programme, End plastic pollution, Circular Economy, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), UNEA’s Resolution 5/14.

Context:

The first session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-1) convened and managed by the United Nations Environment Programme, tasked with developing an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution, concluded in Uruguay’s Punta Del Este December 2, 2022.

Key Highlights:

It implicitly endorsed the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)’s position that plastic pollution is rooted in the material’s life cycle.
The UN Secretariat’s document titled Summary of plastic pollution science noted that plastic pollution was an offshoot of the linear take-make-dispose economy.
- It said the current trends needed to be replaced by a circular economy which forms the basis of the solutions to the plastic pollution problem facing the world.
The UNEA resolution 5/14 titled “End plastic pollution: Towards an international legally binding instrument” calls for the international legally binding instrument to promote a comprehensive lifecycle approach to chemicals and waste through sustainable production and consumption of plastics by adopting sound product design, and environment-friendly waste management.

Major Issues:

Pollution
- Plastic accounts for 85% of all marine litter.
- The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) predicts that the amount of plastic in the ocean will nearly triple by 2040, adding 23 million to 37 million tonnes more waste every year.
- The cost of plastic pollution to society - including environmental clean-up and ecosystem degradation-exceeds US$100 billion a year.
- The cost of inaction against plastic waste far exceeds the cost of addressing plastics.
Recycling
- Currently only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, in part because plastic waste has little value.
  - To jump-start a circular economy for plastic, countries should agree, as part of the treaty, to place a surcharge on the creation of polymers, the building blocks of plastics.
This money could be used to fund recycling.
- Retailers that sell plastic products should also be obliged to buy back plastic waste and find ways to reuse it.
This cost for retailers would probably be passed on to consumers.
Consumers would be willing to pay more for products if they knew this would reduce the amount of plastics in the environment.
Such an approach would also help end the production of plastics that cannot be reused or recycled, because there would be no one to buy them back.
Social and Health Implications
- All over the world, but mainly in Asia, plastic waste is burnt.
  - This reduces the volume of waste and prevents it from becoming breeding grounds for bacteria, viruses and mosquitos.
  - But the burning is a major contributor to air pollution.
  - Around 4.2 million people died as a result of outdoor air pollution in 2016, with 91% of those deaths in low- and middle-income countries.
- Studies have found that microplastics are inhaled and consumed through food and water.
  - Smaller-sized plastics, called nanoplastics, have also been shown to cause damage and inflammation in human skin and lung cells.
  - Plastics also contain additives — such as bisphenol A, phthalates and polychlorinated biphenyls — that are linked to endocrine disruption and reproductive abnormalities.

Expectations from the Treaty:

Pollution
- Treaty negotiators will have to deal with competing opinions about how to resolve pollution:
  - Non-governmental organizations and lobbyists often want to ban single-use plastics and find safer alternatives;
  - The plastics industry says that pollution can be solved through improved waste collection; and the waste-management and recycling industries push for more recycling.
  - The treaty will include all of these measures, with varying degrees from country to country.
  - Banning the movement of plastic waste from high-income countries to lower-income countries will also reduce pollution.
- The treaty needs to specify that producers pay for the collection, sorting and recycling of the plastic packaging and products they make.
  - This would divert more plastic from landfill and shift the financial burden of waste management away from local governments, which are typically funded by taxes.
- To reduce the amount of plastic ending up in the ocean, the treaty must include a deadline by which countries aim to reduce the amount of plastic they use.
Recycling
- The treaty needs to establish such a system in the next five years, with countries introducing regulations that penalize companies that pollute plastic into the environment.
  - With penalty-backed regulation, we will see companies change their habits immediately.
- As an approach to a circular economy, there will be greater plastic circulation, we need to ensure we’re not increasing the risk to human or to ecosystem health.
Social and Health Implications
- The treaty should consider asking countries to ban or phase out chemicals in plastic that are known to harm human health.

Way Forward:

Bioplastics (plastics made from materials such as corn starch and vegetable fats and oil) are "innovative solutions" that could be part of a long-term solution.
A concerted effort involving both national and local government as well as private sector, NGOs and citizens is needed.
It is time for the World Health Organization to introduce universal benchmarks for microplastic content in water, similar to those for lead.