Creating a global package to solve the plastic problem

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

We will start eliminating plastic pollution in 2025. Starting in 2022, policymakers representing more than 170 countries are negotiating a legally binding agreement at the United Nations. global plastics treaty Addressing the entire lifecycle of plastics, from design to production and disposal. The treaty shares many of the mechanisms contained in 1987 Montreal ProtocolWhich ultimately led to the phasing out of CFCs, the chemicals responsible for ozone depletion. Thus, it can be equally successful despite opposition.

The treaty was to be finalized at the fifth and final session in Busan, South Korea in late November 2024. So far, maybe this isn’t surprising. The conversation has become polarizedAt the time of writing, the draft treaty includes two options as its overall goal: the first, more ambitious, which aims to “eliminate plastic pollution”; On the other hand, the second one 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 High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic PollutionLed by the Nordics but also including countries like Rwanda and Peru. Option two is preferred by major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, which want to focus the discussion on plastic recycling and waste management rather than its production. In August 2024, the United States, also a major plastics and oil producer, announced a surprise policy shift, now committing to support limits on plastics production as well. Given how influential the Americans are, this new situation will affect the treaty.

Agreeing on option one would take us on a similar path to the Montreal Protocol. While it is unlikely at this point that the treaty will set concrete binding targets for phasing out plastic production, it will undoubtedly set an ambitious target of eliminating plastic pollution. On the other hand, option two (“protecting human health and the environment”) has a very vague objective, partly because we don’t really know for sure what the threshold for human health impacts is, and it may be that We may not know for a very long time.

Regardless, both options are a step forward. Both provide the necessary guidance to the plastics industry to develop better technologies. Option one, for example, would lead companies to develop alternatives such as fully biodegradable and compostable materials that are designed to eventually replace plastics (particularly single-use plastics such as shopping bags and plastic packaging. , which account for 35 percent of plastic use today). Option two would likely lead the industry to develop more efficient ways to reduce waste flows, such as better recycling processes.

This technology steer is probably the most important aspect of the treaty. For example, the original 1987 Montreal Protocol set very conservative gradual phase-down targets for CFC production reduction: 20 percent by 1994 and then 50 percent by 1998. At the time, these were seen as too slow to be needed to solve the problem. But, importantly, the protocol also clearly states that such targets will be revisited as new scientific and alternative technologies become available. This placed pressure on the industry to develop technological solutions as companies competed to develop better products. Ultimately, those alternatives – such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that can be used in refrigeration with little impact on the ozone layer – developed so faster than expected that, after just three years, countries agreed to phase them out. They met again to agree. Full use of CFCs by 2000.

A global plastics treaty in 2025 will send a clear message to the plastics industry that it needs to change the way it does business. This will be the beginning of the end of plastic.