Negotiators are advancing talks to draft a plastic pollution treaty that would target the production of plastic or stricter controls on waste management.
Kenya's President William Ruto kicked off the talks on Monday in Nairobi with a call to address "an existential threat to life, human and otherwise, on Earth." The U.N. Environment Program's Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, which is developing the treaty, is hosting five weeklong negotiating sessions.
This is the third round of talks to develop an international legally binding deal on plastic pollution, including what ends up in the marine environment. Two earlier rounds were held in Uruguay and Paris, and two more are planned for 2024.
The U.N. committee was formed after delegates from 175 nations to the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi voted unanimously last year to devise a legally binding global treaty to cleanse the world of plastic pollution.
Global plastic waste has more than doubled in 20 years to 460 million metric tons a year, and it is on track to triple within four decades.
Ruto noted the negotiations, which run until Sunday and include some 2,000 participants, focus on several approaches such as reducing the amount of plastics that are reduced, eliminating problematic and short-lived plastics, and investing in solid waste management policies.
"Dealing with plastics pollution is central to making progress on climate change," said Ruto, citing the role of plastic production in carbon emissions. "It is now time for investors, multinational corporations and technology companies to shift strategic investments to reduce their plastics waste footprint."
UNEP's Executive Director Inger Andersen noted that the U.N. Environment Assembly called for a treaty on the full life cycle of plastic and “not an instrument that deals with plastic pollution by recycling or waste management alone."
"The full life cycle," she said. "This means rethinking everything along the chain, from polymer to pollution, from product to packaging."
In May, her agency said a global treaty to cut plastic pollution could eliminate four-fifths of the world's plastic waste by 2040 mainly through far more reuse, recycling and replaced materials. That would pay for itself because the annual social and environmental costs of plastic pollution range from US$300 billion to $US1.5 trillion, according to the report, which projected a net growth of 970,000 jobs in developing countries and a net loss of 270,000 jobs in developed countries.
'We must work collectively'
About 69% of all the plastics produced is used only once or twice before it is discarded and 22% is mismanaged, meaning it is dumped in landfills, leaks into the environment or illegally incinerated. Only 9% is recycled, according to the Organization for Economic Development, which found the world produces twice as much plastic waste as it did two decades ago.
Anderson said the world must use less virgin materials, plastics and harmful chemicals to ensure we use, reuse, and recycle resources more efficiently. But the negotiating dynamics are similar to those in U.N. climate talks, since most plastic is produced from fossil fuels. crude oil and natural gas.
Major oil and gas producers and industry groups backed by nations such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States favor a more limited treaty. Norway and Rwanda, however, chair a group of countries that have formed a "high-ambition" coalition pushing for a legally binding plastic pollution treaty.
Environmental groups want to cut down on plastic production and use, but the global plastics industry favors an approach based on more chemical or advanced recycling. The International Council of Chemical Associations said it is committed to achieving the safe management of chemicals and waste globally, but better recycling, recovery, and reuse of plastic is needed to prevent more pollution.
Erin Simon, a vice president of World Wildlife Fund, said after the first day of negotiations that a few nations were "not only threatening the integrity of the U.N. process, they are also putting the environmental and human health of communities around the world at risk."
Gustavo Adolfo Meza-Cuadra Velásquez, a Peruvian economist and diplomat who is presiding over the talks, said he hoped to have agreement on a revised draft treaty by the end of talks. “The urgency of addressing plastic pollution cannot be overstated,” he said. “To bring a difference at the scale required, we must work collectively.”
