Meeting in Uruguay marks major step in Global plastics treaty
Following a meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in March 2022, UN members states committed to negotiating a global plastics treaty.
At the fifth UNEA session (UNEA 5.2), member nations adopted a mandate: “End plastic pollution: Towards an international legally binding instrument.”
The goal of the UN is to establish a treaty by the end of 2024, to help this process, following a meeting in Senegal earlier on in the year it was recommended there should five Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meetings over the next two years. The first of which takes place in Punta Del Este, Uruguay from the 28thNovember-1st December.
The mandate from the UN has called for the widest possible participation in the treaty; from governments all over the globe to different stakeholders including business, industry and indigenous people. The INC will be a hybrid event with 25% of those involved participating online. In addition to this 35% will be from government and 60% will be from the major stakeholder groups.
Uniting key players on the world stage however may be an issue for the issue for the UN and other interested parties. Russia has self-nominated themselves for a place on the bureau while opposing the nomination of EU members. This is compounded by the fact that, according to reports in Reuters the United States is sounding out to allies that they want a split from the treaty, proposing a similar deal to the Paris agreement.
On the back of the announcement of the treaty and the INC’s there was a clammer from businesses to align themselves with major names in the plastics industry to protect interests and potentially innovate. The ‘business coalition for a plastics treaty’ Major industry names such as Packem and Borealis aim to work together with brands such as Coca-Cola and Nestle to: ‘the reduce plastic production and use through a circular economy approach, increased circulation of all necessary plastics, and the prevention and remediation of hard-to-abate micro- and macro-plastic leakage into the environment.’
There are six key points that have been identified when ‘setting the goalposts’ in regards to the targets and what could be damaging to the negotiation of any possible agreement: failure to control production of virgin polymers, lack of monitoring and reporting obligations, inadequate funding, lack of transparency on chemicals used in plastics production, linear-economy conceptualisation of plastics and maybe most notably not repeating the failures of the Paris agreement which relied heavily on nationally determined contributions (NDCs). NDC’s effectively allowed nations to set what some see as underwhelming targets when combating climate change.
Such NDC’s are part of the reasoning behind organisations like the Ellen MacArthur foundation (EMF), calling for agreements to be legally binding as the organisation believes it will: “prevent a patchwork of disconnected solutions, create a level playing field, and set the right enabling conditions to scale up circular economy solutions worldwide.”
The UN has also had its say from what it would like to see from the plastics industry moving forward, in UNEA Resolution 5/14 there is an emphasis on finding new, sustainable approaches but also a challenge set out to the plastics industry by aiming to: ‘design products and materials so that they can be reused, remanufactured or recycled.’ This is effectively a goal of severely reducing single use plastics.
A UK wide ban was proposed on single use plastics in 2021, a report produced by DEFRA showed that the plastics industry was already beginning to move away from single use material due to the UK plastics pact. However, the report did concede that this maybe costly for both businesses and customers.
According to the EMF and UN global commitment report, a driving force behind the principles and basic ideas of the treaty as well as cutting out the use of single use plastics, the industry has a duty to uphold the circular economy by innovating and creating viable alternatives. According to the report current industry trends indicate: ‘Current efforts are mainly focused on material changes, such as lightweighting and packaging redesign.’ Although this is an improvement the message from the EMF report is clear, the industry needs to ‘curb’ the production of further packaging products.
The reuse of single use plastics is another issue that is highlighted in the report that is likely to be a mainstay of the treaty. The EMF report acknowledges targets set by major brands however it does highlight the lacklustre nature of the figures and points out ‘low - and slightly decreasing - share of reusable plastic packaging.’ The report highlights the need for those in the industry to have an action plan, an issue that is likely to be discussed with stakeholders as part of the treaty.
The report also points out the plastics industry has a whole has targets that it is currently missing: ‘100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging’ is a target that the industry is likely to miss and an issue that the treaty may look to target. To meet these targets that may be revisited in the treaty as the report points out the industry needs to improve infrastructure to hit any realistic goal. Unilever last reported highlighted that only 53% of their packaging where recyclable which by the company’s own admission is much less than the 70% of other general materials that are recyclable. He company highlight the relative lack of technology capable of recycling plastic as opposed to other materials.
The industry and major stakeholders around it is also likely to have discussions around the use of virgin polymers. The EMF reports the use of plastics produced from fossil fuels are back to 2018 levels with the report calling for business and industry to drop reliance on new plastics and opt for recycled products.
Mars is committed to dropping their virgin plastics use by 25% in the coming years however they do not give a time frame and do not give an indication on what current virgin plastics usage looks like within the company.