Representatives from 184 countries recently gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, to tackle the growing plastic crisis. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting (INC 5.2) went into overtime but failed to produce an agreement.
Two main issues were supposed to be resolved by this, the last scheduled round of negotiations: whether the treaty should include a cap on the production of new plastic and how to address concerns about chemicals in plastic.
More than 100 member states of the so-called High Ambition Coalition advocated for a binding treaty to cap plastic production and impose restrictions on dangerous chemicals used in plastic.
Another group of “like-minded countries,” composed of petrochemical-producing countries including Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia, instead pushed to simply manage plastic waste better, largely through recycling. At present, less than 10% of plastic is recycled globally.
The U.S., one of the largest plastic-producing countries in the world, reportedly sent letters to several countries urging them to reject a cap on plastic production and chemicals.
The U.N. meeting is consensus-based, “meaning that unless somebody rejects it, a potential decision would proceed. And all decisions for content did not proceed,” Björn Beeler, executive director and international coordinator with the International Pollutants Elimination Network, told Mongabay in a video call.
Following the collapse of the meeting, French environment minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher expressed anger, saying, “A handful of countries, guided by short-term financial interests rather than the health of their populations and the sustainability of their economies, blocked the adoption of an ambitious treaty against plastic pollution.”
Current estimates suggest plastic waste will triple in the coming decades, further polluting oceans, land, wildlife and our own bodies. The vast majority of plastic is made from fossil fuels, making plastic a significant contributor to climate change and its production toxic for local communities.
Houston, Texas, is home to the largest petrochemical complex in the U.S. Children living near the facility have a 56% greater chance of being diagnosed with leukemia than children who live farther away.
Shiv Srivastava was born and raised in Houston; he’s the policy director for Fenceline Watch, an environmental justice organization based in Houston and recently lost his mother to lung disease.
“There’s a whole host of health impacts that are associated with it [plastic production]. For what? A ketchup packet that you didn’t ask for in your fast-food bag? Nobody deserves to lose their life for this,” he told Mongabay in a video call from the U.N. meeting.
Undeterred, Beeler said the push toward a plastic treaty is a marathon, not a sprint. He expects representatives to meet again but with a different process that can achieve results. “Consensus is dead,” he said.
“This is a problem that’s not going away. You can try to bury your head in the sand, but it’s just not going away.”
Banner image: A woman collects plastic and other waste for recycling in South Africa. Image by Ihsaan Haffejee/UNEP via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
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