Create a global package to solve the plastic problem

According to the United Nations, plastic production has risen from 2 million metric tons in 1950 to approx 400 million in 2024. This number is expected to triple by 2060. Only 10 percent of this plastic is currently recycled and reused. The rest will remain in our environment for centuries, polluting the planet, from oceans to mountains, contaminating the food chain and human bodies, where it risks damaging our organs and brains.

In 2025, we will start putting an end to plastic pollution. Since 2022, UN policymakers, representing more than 170 countries, have been negotiating a legally binding agreement. Global Plastics Treaty Addressing the full life cycle of plastics, from design to production to disposal. This treaty shares many of the existing mechanisms 1987 Montreal ProtocolWhich eventually led to the phasing out of CFCs, the chemicals responsible for depleting the ozone layer. As such, it can be successful, despite opposition to it.

The treaty was scheduled to be finalized by the fifth and final session, in Busan, South Korea, at the end of November 2024. So far, it is perhaps not surprising that Negotiations have become polarized. At the time of writing, the draft treaty had two options regarding its overall goal: the first, more ambitious, aims to “end plastic pollution”; The second 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 Nordic countries but also including countries such as Rwanda and Peru. The second option is favored by major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, who want to direct the focus of discussions towards plastic recycling and waste management, rather than its production. In August 2024, the United States, also a major producer of plastics and oil, announced a surprising policy shift by now committing to support restrictions on plastic production as well. Given the extent of the influence of the Americans, this new position will affect the treaty.

Agreeing on the first option would put us on a path very similar to that followed by the Montreal Protocol. While it is unlikely at this stage that the treaty will set concrete, binding targets for the gradual reduction of plastic production, it will undoubtedly set the ambitious goal of ending plastic pollution. On the other hand, the second option (“protecting human health and the environment”) is a very vague goal, partly because we do not know for sure what the threshold for impacts on human health is, and may never know for sure. A very long time.

Regardless, the two options represent a step forward. Both provide the necessary guidance for the plastics industry to develop better technologies. The first option, for example, would inspire companies to develop alternatives such as fully biodegradable and compostable materials designed to eventually replace plastic (particularly single-use plastics such as shopping bags and plastic packaging, which make up 35% of plastic use today). The second option is likely to push the industry to develop more efficient ways to reduce the flow of waste, such as improving recycling processes.

This technology guidance is perhaps the most important aspect of the treaty. For example, the original Montreal Protocol of 1987 set very conservative phase-down targets for CFC production reductions: 20 percent by 1994 and then 50 percent by 1998. At the time, these targets were seen as too slow for For what is required. To address the problem. But more importantly, the Protocol also clearly provides for the review of such objectives as new scientific and alternative technologies become available. This has put pressure on the industry to develop technological solutions as companies compete to develop better products. Ultimately, those alternatives – such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that can be used for refrigeration with a much lower impact on the ozone layer – developed much faster than expected, so much so that after just three years, countries came together again to agree to phase out Use these alternatives. Full use of CFCs by the year 2000.

In 2025, the Global Plastics Treaty will send a clear message to the plastics industry that it must change the way it does business. This will be the beginning of the end for plastic.