Plastics in Politics Live December 2023: Takeaways from the UN plastics treaty talks

The plastics industry sent a large contingent to the United Nations plastics treaty talks in Nairobi, Kenya, last month, and PN’s Steve Toloken was there to report first-hand.

While an agreement may be starting to take shape, Toloken said there are still challenges ahead. In our December Plastics in Politics Live, he talked about the issues.

“There are signs of agreement on the low-hanging fruit, like dealing with waste management issues,” he said. “But there’s a lot of disagreement about the supply side of the upstream issues. Like what do about the amount of plastic production in the world? How do you deal with that? How do you deal with lists of problematic plastics or problematic chemicals.”

He pointed out that industry itself is sometimes divided, with consumer brands – major users of plastics – bringing different priorities to the talks than plastics makers and manufacturers.

“There’s really no industry point of view at the talks,” Toloken said. And some NGOs and environmental groups think industry shouldn’t even have a seat at the table.

Meanwhile, industry representatives wonder if they’re doing a good enough job of explaining their position, and Toloken said he expects them to be “much more vocal” at the next round of talks in Ottawa.

Other topics in the livestream included the role of mechanical and chemical recycling, how nonpackaging end markets could be impacted by a plastics treaty, and how the treaty is setting the stage for future debates around plastics. The next Plastics in Politics Live is scheduled for Feb. 13, 2024.