Draft UN treaty has 'absence of options,' plastics industry says

The global plastics treaty talks moved to a new phase Sept. 4, with the United Nations releasing a long-awaited first draft of language that's drawing concern and praise from all sides.

A coalition of global plastics groups, for example, said it was worried about an "absence of options" to accelerate plastics circularity.

Various environmental groups praised calls for "progressive reduction" in plastics manufacturing but warned against relying too much on voluntary national action, like in the Paris climate accord.

Treaty observers noted that the draft is only a starting point for diplomats ahead of the next formal negotiating session in November in Kenya.

And they pointed out that this initial language, called a "zero draft," had not been expected to resolve major disputes between countries that surfaced in the last session in June in Paris.

But the Global Partners for Plastics Circularity, which includes resin makers and the World Plastics Council, said it was a positive that the United Nations Environment Programme and its Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee moved quickly to write the draft, even if parts of it came up short.

"The Global Partners for Plastics Circularity appreciate UNEP and the INC chair's efforts in releasing an early zero draft of the global agreement on plastics," said Benny Mermans, chair of the World Plastics Council. "While we continue to review the document, we are concerned at the absence of options to accelerate and scale a circular economy for plastics.

"We look forward to continuing our engagement with governments to find practical solutions to help eliminate plastic pollution," said Mermans, who is also vice president of sustainability at Chevron Phillips Chemical Co.

The draft seemed to leave language about chemical recycling for further discussion.

The topic was contentious at the most recent round of treaty talks, in Paris, so “it looks like the Secretariat did not want to get into details just yet,” said Anja Brandon, associate director of U.S. plastics policy for Ocean Conservancy.

Brandon, who is a delegate to the treaty talks, said it may mirror difficult negotiations over chemical recycling language in another U.N. agreement dealing with waste, the Basel Convention.

At a separate Basel negotiating session earlier this year, countries “essentially were unable to resolve the disagreement” over chemical recycling and in diplomatic terms put the issue “in brackets” as a topic that had not been settled, she said.

Environmental groups saw positives and negatives.

The World Wildlife Fund said the draft "offers many effective solutions" but also "includes a variety of weaker options" as countries start picking it over.

The Kenya meeting will be the third of five planned negotiation sessions, with hopes that the treaty could be completed by early 2025.

"This draft is only the starting point as the treaty negotiations now go into intense text negotiations," said Eirik Lindebjerg, WWF's global plastics policy lead. "If countries fail to establish strong common measures and are tempted to go for the more voluntary options, we will fail to stem the onslaught of plastic pollution the world is already experiencing.

"We need countries to dial up ambition and finalize a plastics treaty that is globally binding, with bans on high-risk, single use products, and requirements on product use that prioritizes a full lifecycle approach and a just transition," he said. "Countries must resist settling for anything less."

The Break Free from Plastic coalition said the most promising areas in the draft, in addition to calls for reductions in plastic production, are language eliminating polymers and chemicals of concern and problematic, short-lived plastics products, setting up targets for reuse and calls for a just transition for recycling workers and communities.

But it said it had concerns about provisions in the draft around language for indigenous communities, as well as recycled plastic content, extended producer responsibility and waste management, if they are not ambitious enough and result in "misplaced" emphasis on recycling.

"The zero draft provides a good basis for the upcoming negotiations at INC-3," said Von Hernandez, BFFP global coordinator. "But as always, the devil will be in the details, specifically with regard to plastic production reduction targets and the criteria that will need to be agreed upon to reduce and eliminate problematic polymers, plastic products and chemicals of concern."

Other groups focused on language on chemical controls, with the International Pollutants Elimination Network saying the draft including provisions to create a process for assessing toxic chemicals in polymers, including microplastics, as well as requiring more disclosure of chemical composition and controls over trade.

"The draft today is an important milestone in the effort toward a global plastic treaty," said IPEN Policy Advisor Vito Buonsante. "The plastics crisis threatens global health and the environment, and is especially dangerous to communities in the global south where the majority of IPEN members face daily struggles to rein in the plastics problem."

Environmental groups were much quicker out of the gate with early analysis on the draft. Greenpeace linked the plastics treaty with fossil fuels and the need to slow global warming.

"The zero draft of the global plastics treaty includes necessary provisions to reduce plastic production and use," said Graham Forbes, Greenpeace USA global plastics campaign lead. "But we need governments to go much further and negotiate an ambitious treaty that turns off the toxic plastics tap.

"The global plastics treaty must cut plastic production by at least 75 percent to ensure that we are staying below 1.5° C for our climate and to protect our communities, human health, and biodiversity," he said.

Another Greenpeace campaigner pointed to wins in language calling for global reuse targets and development of systems for reusable packaging, but predicted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the talks will become an argument over how prescriptive to make the treaty.

"The devil will be in the detail — the most immediate fight will be whether we have a globally binding treaty or an agreement full of loopholes so no one has to do anything," said Sam Chetan-Walsh, a Greenpeace policy adviser on the treaty.

A U.S. diplomat, however, told a plastics industry conference in June that Washington sees a nationally driven approach as ultimately more successful because a significant number of countries could balk at a treaty that's too prescriptive, and because it would allow more national innovation.

WWF said it saw language in the draft around global bans on "high risk plastic products" and polymers of concern as important to creating common global minimum standards, and said the draft is a good basis for discussing worldwide financing mechanisms for implementing the treaty.