Next week, more than 100 countries will meet in Nairobi to begin the first steps towards establishing a historic global treaty that will address the plastic crisis plaguing the planet.
Plastic has been found in Arctic sea-ice, the bellies and stomachs of whales, and governments have been under increasing pressure from the international scourge to unite against it.
Negotiators are currently negotiating the framework for a legally binding, plastic treaty. Diplomats believe it is the most ambitious and ambitious environmental pact since 2015’s Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
“This is a huge moment. This is a historic moment,” Inger Andersen (UNEP) told AFP this week.
The scope of the treaty’s scope is still to be determined. There are many competing proposals in the works ahead of the UN environment summit, which will begin Monday in Nairobi.
Meetings between world leaders and ministers of the environment in person and virtually are expected help kickstart the process for a treaty. The negotiating committee will be responsible for finalising the policy details over two years.
However, more than 50 countries along with scientists, business and environmental groups have called for tougher regulations to regulate industry to reduce the flood of plastic entering the environment.
This could include a cap to the production of new plastic (which is made from oil & gas and forecast to double by 2040), redesigning products to make recycling simpler or more harmful, and phasing-out single-use items.
– “Treaty with your teeth”
Many countries, including the major plastic producers in the United States and China have expressed their support for a treaty but did not endorse any specific measures.
However, there is consensus that individual countries cannot solve the problem and that a coordinated global response to it is necessary.
Plastic production has grown at a faster rate than any other material over the past 50 years, surpassing all national efforts to protect the environment.
Today, there are approximately 300 million tonnes per year of plastic waste. This is roughly equivalent to the entire human population.
Only 10 percent of the waste is recycled. The rest end up in landfills or the oceans.
According to some estimates, plastic equivalent to a garbage truck is dumped into the ocean every minute. This choking marine life as well as causing havoc on coastlines all over the world. Plastic particles can also be ingested into the food chain and eventually become part of the human diet.
“It is not something which stops at the border. Andersen stated that plastics in oceans can show us that our trash becomes our trash and our trash becomes our trash.
Many major corporations, including Unilever (Coca-Cola) and Coca-Cola, stated that a plastics agreement with binding targets was crucial to establish a high-standard of action for all countries.
Environment groups are still wary of any treaty that does not include concrete targets and enforcement mechanisms to ensure accountability.
Erastus Ooko, Greenpeace Africa, stated that they are looking for something that is legally binding and has implications.
– “Ready for Change”
Some of the largest plastics producers in the world have also supported a treaty. However they claim that banning certain materials would cause disruptions in supply chains and hinder recycling.
Environment groups warn that giants of plastic will try to steer talks to Nairobi away from concrete commitments to make plastic less.
Two of the treaty proposal’s proposals take a “source from sea” approach. They target not just trash in oceans, landfills, or pollution caused by making new plastic from fossil fuels.
Sources close to the negotiations in Nairobi say that both the Japanese and Rwandan proposals are supported by broad support.
A third proposal from India, which called for voluntary actions, doesn’t have broad support.
Marco Lambertini, director-general of WWF, stated that “I believe the world is ready to a change in how we relate to plastic.”