The latest negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic pollution ended in Geneva last week without an agreement. The result leaves oceans, wildlife, livelihoods and public health vulnerable to surging plastic production and pollution.
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United Nations delegates from 184 countries debated whether the treaty should have binding limits on plastic production, phase out toxic chemical additives, and end the global waste trade. Oil and petrochemical producing countries pushed back against measures to cap production and proposed an agreement based on waste management that environmental groups say will not address the root causes of the problem.
Positions also diverged on how to finance the treaty and the mechanism for decision making. In the closing session., many delegates expressed deep disappointment. Conservation group WWF said that the breakdown in negotiations means the plastic crisis “will continue unchecked while the world waits for the urgent action it so desperately needs.”
Speaking to the Eco-Business Podcast, Doug Woodring, managing director of Hong Kong-based nonprofit Ocean Recovery Alliance, said that countries do not need to wait for a treaty, and should enact polluter-pays laws that mandate companies to recover the plastic they put into the market and finance the chronically under-funded circular economy.
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Governments don’t need a treaty to take action. They need to wake up and fix their own front yard by legislating against single-use plastic and introducing recycled content mandates.
Doug Woodring, managing director, Ocean Recovery Alliance
” Compare the growth in plastics [which has been exponential] and the growth in recycling infrastructure and waste management, which has been almost flat for 40 years – this gap is why we have so much pollution,” he said.
Woodring, who has attended previous plastic treaty talks as an observer, said a problem with the negotiations was that there were “too many cooks in the kitchen”. He suggested that the treaty negotiations were simplified to only focus on ending plastic pollution and not toxic chemicals in plastics, “otherwise it will never get signed.”
“We have to remember that this treaty was set up originally to reduce plastic pollution – period. It wasn’t about chemicals, it was not about health, it was not about [production] caps,” he said.
The former banker, who runs recycling projects in Cambodia and Indonesia, also argued that the treaty should not look to curb any trade in plastics, which could boost a circular economy for the material.
” A lot of people don’t like the idea of trade. But if you have a circular economy and you’re trading a material that can have a second or third life, you cannot call this waste. It’s not dumping waste on anyone. It’s moving material just like you would with paper pulp, copper or iron ore,” he said.
Doug Woodring speaking to the EB Podcast from Hong Kong. Image: Eco-Business Teams
Tune in as we discuss:
- What now? INC5.3?
- Is no treaty better than a watered down treaty?
- Recycled content mandates versus virgin plastic caps
- Pressure brands not petrochemical producers
- Action is possible without a treaty
- The need for regulatory consistency for plastics
- What will a realistic treaty look like?
- What should a treaty look like for Asia?
The transcript in full:
Negotiations for the Global Plastic Treaty have just concluded in Geneva. Do you represent the camp that was pushing for a more ambitious treaty, and are you disappointed that we haven’t seen one?
There’s a lot of bad press right now and everyone feels like the winds got let out of the sails and we’ve all got ripped off.
But having no treaty signed doesn’t mean it won’t get signed in the future. I already heard there’s talk about iNC 5.3. And that might even be within this year.
Most treaties take eight or 10 years to negotiate. This was forced upon everyone in two years. But three and a half years ago, there were not negotiating teams from any countries of the world around plastic.
There’s over 180 countries who now have negotiating teams focusing on plastic pollution. That in itself is a giant achievement, whether we signed something or not.
Some high ambition countries like Panama, say that no treaty was better than a watered down treaty which did not include plastic production caps. What do you make of that? Also, what’s the next best thing that countries in Southeast Asia can do?
Some countries argue, maybe rightly or wrongly, we need to always be able to have innovation. And if you put a [production] cap, you can’t have new airplane parts, new wind turbine parts, new wave machine parts, new medical parts. My answer to that would be, okay, you can still make plastic and still use it, but let’s put minimum recycled content mandates in there instead of virgin [plastic] mandates.
If we mandate recycled content, then people need to collect more. Then you have a market for recycled feedstock.
It will help bring finance to the recycling industry. It will help bring infrastructure to the recycling industry. It’ll help bring value to the collected items, not just plastic bottles, but value of plastics which no one really wants to pick up.
Going into your other question, what can countries do and what can people do? Everyone says, oh, it’s bad that we have this treaty failure, but a lot of it is our responsibility also.
If we are going still buy things from a bubble tea shop or a McDonald’s and you’re going let the staff put that drink in a plastic bag, that’s our fault.
We need to tell our governments that we don’t want this to even be possible in our market. That can be legislated away in one day.
It’s not just the consumers’ responsibility, right? It’s the producers who should design that stuff out of the consumer sphere?
So, that’s a good point. I’m not backing anyone in any way, but you have got to think that the petrochemical industry, they are business-to-business (B2B) players and they supply polymers and pellets to make branded items or packaging that looks cool – it’s bigger, it’s a weird shape, it sits on the shelf well and it sells well. Should they be allowed to do that? I don’t know, but that’s what is allowed today.
It’s the brands who say, I want a big red thing to sit on the shelf, even though my product’s much smaller, so that someone will buy my thing instead of the other thing.
That’s what we have got to get rid of. That wastage is from the brands and the packagers, not from the petroleum guys. Meanwhile, consumers are stuck in the supermarket saying, I want to buy an apple, but now it’s packaged in a tennis ball can. That is crazy. So that is something we should change right away.
All of the governments in the world don’t need a treaty to take action. They need their own local government to wake up, and say, Hmm, we don’t have a treaty, but let’s fix our own front yard. Let’s legislate against single use plastic. Let’s have recycled content mandates.
There’s some countries out there not caring about any of these treaties anyway. And in a way, they don’t matter because if you have countries that have new regulations and those countries want to sell into these countries, they have to play by the rules of the local legislation. That can easily be put in by any single country and it doesn’t need a treaty.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) does seem to be a solution that could work at country level. What do you make of the lobbying efforts against EPR laws and the pushback by the petrochemicals industry against any mandates to cap plastic production?
That lobbying has definitely existed around the world, and this has been a problem to get bottle rebate laws or bottle recovery programmes into many countries.
One of the things the lobby groups didn’t like in the past was that it was only going after their one product or product type – a plastic bottle usually. But it was never about a candy wrapper. It was never about a potato chip bag. It was never about a plastic fork. If we do the EPR law properly, and it’s across the board for everyone who is selling a piece of plastic or a package or a product, then the playing field is level, everyone rises or sinks with the tide.
Okay, there’s a little bit of extra cost. But it’s the same across the board, and you don’t have cheaters. It needs to be legislated. Once it is, and that extra one or two cent per piece is paid for every product that is made, then there’s money, which is the key problem of this treaty also. It is the financing. Where do we get the money to put in new recycling and waste management infrastructure and an EPR programme per country is a way to deliver and capture some of the finance for all the players who are selling things in plastic products.
I think today those laws are more acceptable to the bigger brands. Five years ago, they were not really. They’re now realising this is the next step of commerce.
If we ever see a global plastic treaty, what in your view will it look like? What’s a realistic, implementable treaty?
Implementation is a bit different. But let’s get the treaty first. Look at the Paris climate agreement (signed in 2015). Some countries move fast, some move slow.
I think one of the problems is the cooks in the kitchen. We have to remember that this treaty was set up originally to stop and reduce plastic pollution, period. That means junk in the water, junk in the river. It wasn’t about chemicals, it was not about health, it was not about [production] caps. You could argue all those things are implicated and they are.
But if you try to put in something that is a giant rabbit hole at the end of it, which is chemicals, for example, we all have to all of a sudden be chemical experts. All the negotiators have to be chemical experts. They are not. And therefore we will never get it signed. So let’s take that out. And park it with a Stockholm and the Rotterdam Convention, which deals with toxic chemicals. So let’s get the plastic treaty to stop plastic pollution.
What are your thoughts on what Asia needs to see out of a treaty?
I would go back to EPR. We need financing. So the Asian and developing markets need infrastructure. Compare the growth in plastic [which has been exponential] and the growth in recycling infrastructure and waste management, which has been almost flat for 40 years.
This gap is where we have so much pollution. We need money to be investing in sorting, recycling, collection. That’s what the EPR programs can help fund.
But we also need trade. A lot of people don’t like the idea of trade, and if you have a circular economy and you’re trading a material that can have a second life, you cannot call this a waste grade [material]. It’s not dumping waste on anyone. It’s moving material just like you would with paper pulp, copper or iron ore.
This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity
