Creating a global package to solve the plastics problem

According to the United Nations, plastic production skyrocketed from 2 million metric tons in 1950 to approximately 400 million in 2024. This figure is expected to triple by 2060. Currently, only 10 percent of this plastic is recycled and reused. The rest will remain in our environment for centuries, contaminating the planet, from the oceans to the mountains, contaminating food chains and human bodies, where it risks damaging our organs and brains.

In 2025 we will begin to end plastic pollution. Since 2022, United Nations policymakers, representing more than 170 countries, have been negotiating a legally binding agreement. Global Plastics Treaty addressing the full life cycle of plastics, from design to production and disposal. This treaty shares many of the mechanisms present in the Montreal Protocol of 1987which ultimately led to the phasing out of CFCs, the chemicals responsible for depleting the ozone layer. As such, it can be just as successful, despite opposition.

The treaty was due to be finalized at the fifth and final session, in Busan, South Korea, at the end of November 2024. So far, perhaps unsurprisingly, negotiations have been polarised. At the time of writing this article, the draft treaty includes two options regarding its general objective: the first, more ambitious, aims to “end plastic pollution”; the second, on the other hand, aims to “protect human health and the environment from plastic pollution.”

The first option is defended by a group of countries that are part of the High ambition coalition to end plastic pollutionled by the Nordic countries but also including countries such as Rwanda and Peru. Option two is preferred by major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, who want to direct the focus of discussions towards plastic recycling and waste management, rather than its production. In August 2024, the United States, also a major plastic and oil producer, announced a surprising policy shift by now pledging to also support limits on plastic production. Given the influence of the Americans, this new position will affect the treaty.

Agreeing to option one would put us on a path very similar to that followed by the Montreal Protocol. While it is unlikely at this time that the treaty would set concrete binding targets for gradually reducing plastic production, it is undeniable that it would set the ambitious goal of ending plastic pollution. On the other hand, option two (“protect human health and the environment”) is a terribly vague goal, in part because we don’t really know for sure what the threshold for human health impacts is, and it’s possible that We won’t know for a while. a long time.

Either way, both options are a step forward. Both provide the necessary direction for the plastics industry to develop better technologies. Option one, for example, would inspire companies to develop alternatives such as fully biodegradable and compostable materials designed to ultimately replace plastic (especially single-use plastics, such as shopping bags and plastic packaging, which constitute 35 percent of plastic use today). Option two would likely push the industry to develop more efficient ways to reduce the waste stream, such as better recycling processes.

This technological direction is perhaps the most important aspect of the treaty. The original 1987 Montreal Protocol, for example, set very conservative phase-down targets for reducing CFC production: 20 percent by 1994 and then 50 percent by 1998. At the time, they were considered too slow for that was required. to address the problem. But, more importantly, the protocol also explicitly stated that such objectives would be reviewed as new scientific and alternative technologies became available. This put pressure on the industry to develop technological solutions as companies competed to develop better products. In the end, those alternatives, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which could be used in refrigeration and have much less impact on the ozone layer, were developed so much faster than expected that, just three years later, countries met again to agree to their gradual elimination. complete use of CFCs by the year 2000.

In 2025, the Global Plastics Treaty will send a clear message to the plastics industry that it has to change the way it does business. That will be the beginning of the end of plastic.