Can the world agree to end plastic pollution?

We all know by now that plastic is harming the environment. Making it causes climate wrecking emissions, it clogs up our seas and rivers, it lasts for hundreds of years, and it harms our health along the way. Despite this, we are making more and more of it. Globally, almost 12 million tonnes of plastic packaging are produced every year. In Scotland alone, we are producing 2 million plastic bottles every single day. 

To stop the endless expansion of plastic production, global cooperation is needed. We hope that this is in sight, and that we might see the plastics crisis finally being tackled. 

In 2022, the UN set a goal to develop a Global Plastic Treaty by 2025 to end plastic pollution. Since then, countries from around the world have met regularly to negotiate the terms of the treaty. The final meeting is taking place in Busan, Republic of Korea from 25 November to 1 December this year. The world’s first ever global plastics pollution treaty is a unique opportunity to change the way this harmful material is used for good.  

While this has the potential to be a hugely positive step, like with the annual COP meetings on climate change, there is a risk that plastic producing countries and corporate lobbyists will weaken the final agreement. In this article, I’ll look at what must be included to make the Global Plastics Treaty a success, and the current situation with negotiations at the time of writing. 

What’s needed to make the Global Plastics Treaty work? 

Previous measures to tackle the plastic crisis have proven insufficient in addressing it. In 2018, the Scottish and UK Governments, along with many other governments and hundreds more organisations signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. This voluntary initiative has failed to make progress, and the 2025 targets are expected to be widely missed. 

This approach failed because it did not address the root cause of the plastics crisis – the continual growth of production. Now, it is imperative that the Global Plastics Treaty does not repeat this mistake. 

To be effective, the Global Plastics Treaty must contain several key components: 

• It must be legally binding, rather than voluntary, to make sure all parties take action on their promises, 

• The treaty must encompass all plastics and every stage of their use, from production to waste, so that all the impacts of plastic pollution are addressed, 

• It must promote reuse to reduce the demand for plastic, rather than false solutions such as chemical recycling (a risky, expensive and inefficient way of breaking plastics down into oil to be used again which has been labelled as a ‘dangerous deception’ by campaign groups) and plastic offsetting (polluters paying for the damage of their plastic production rather than reducing the amount they make), 

• Hazardous chemicals found in plastics must be fully identified and eliminated, 

• Financial mechanisms and new investments from rich countries to lower income countries are needed to support a just transition to a fairer future for everyone. 

Above all, the Global Plastics Treaty must have a goal to reduce plastic production at its heart. Only policy makers can hold producers and retailers to account for the harm created through their plastic products, and this agreement should make them do so. 

The High Ambition Coalition 

Many countries are prepared to create a treaty which meets these high ambitions. The UK, along with 65 other countries, is part of the High Ambition Coalition. Their shared goal is to end plastic pollution by 2040. In September 2024, the group reaffirmed its ambition to “protect human health and the environment from the severe effects of plastic pollution”. 

Countries in the Global South are feeling the impacts of the plastics crisis more than others and they are at the heart of proposing the most amibtious solutions. Peru and Rwanda have suggested a target to reduce plastic production by 40% by 2040. Over 50 countries have signed the ‘Bridge to Busan’ declaration pressing for more ambitious action. The UK Government recently signed this declaration, although the Scottish Government has not openly supported this yet. 

Lobbying and greenwash 

Other parties, especially those countries with high levels of fossil fuel and plastic production, are seeking to water down the treaty. Russia, Saudia Arabia and India have opposed targets to limit plastic production, preferring to focus on promoting recycling. Recycling cannot solve the plastic crisis alone because it doesn’t tackle the massive demand and production of new plastic products. There are also splits over the level of detail the treaty should include, how legally binding it should be and what the financial mechanisms should look like.  

Powerful corporate giants, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestle, have been allowed to closely participate in the negotiations and are accused of using delaying tactics and promoting false solutions. Greenwashing tactics are rife. Joshua Baca, from the American Chemistry Council, a trade association whose board includes representatives of the oil and gas companies Shell and Total said: “Restricting the production of plastic materials essential to delivering clean water, renewable energy, and sanitary medical and personal care products is the wrong approach.” 

Time for change 

Despite this opposition, momentum for a more ambitious treaty is building. In May, Japan joined the High Ambition Coalition, leaving the USA as the only member of the G7 not part of the group. As one of the world’s biggest plastics producers, the USA has sat on the fence for two years of negotiations. In August 2024, the US Government signaled for the first time that it will push for measures to limit production. This excited environmental groups who called this move the “turning of the tide towards a more ambitious treaty”. However, it is unlikely that incoming president Donald Trump will ratify a treaty which does anything but put American businesses first, which will be a significant challenge for the High Ambition Coalition negotiators.

As we reach the end game of negotiations, the world holds its breath. Can negotiators pull off that rarest of things – an international environmental treaty that is ambitious and strong enough to meet the crisis it aims to end?