While the outcome of the plastics treaty talks is unclear, and the entire process may seem opaque to many in the industry, the agreement is likely to have long-term impacts in many areas, including packaging design, recycled content and the use of additives.
At least that is the opinion of one plastics industry delegate to the negotiations, who says as part of a Plastics News conference that companies should expect the talks to mark the beginning of years of focus on plastics at a global level.
While the last of five negotiating sessions is planned for South Korea in late November, any treaty that emerges from it will be followed by years of implementation talks, where countries will meet periodically at high-level summits to discuss progress.
"This is a thing that will impact us moving forward forever," said Patrick Krieger, vice president of sustainability at the Plastics Industry Association. "This is the start. This is not anywhere near done."
In an address as part of the Plastics News Caps + Closures online conference — set to air Sept. 18 — he compares the plastics treaty implementation to the conference-of-parties meetings under global climate agreements, which have been going on for nearly 30 years.
It won't be all bad, he said.
"Every time there's a [diplomatic] get together, there will be a discussion on a new restriction or ban or solution," Krieger said. "I don't want to be critical about it. I think that there are very positive things by having this kind of instrument in place that could help address these issues."
That's not to say that there are not areas of deep disagreement in the talks, including on how or if levels of virgin plastic production should be regulated.
That's been a major sticking point in the first four rounds of negotiations, but the U.S. government made headlines in August when it announced it was shifting its position to back some form of limits on virgin production.
Krieger, however, said he thought explicit plastic production caps were unlikely to be in the final treaty, given strong opposition from some countries.
But in his presentation, he identified other areas where he sees the treaty could put requirements on how the plastics industry operates, including in the caps and closures sector.
Specifically, he listed material and additive restrictions, minimum recycled content requirements and sourcing of recycled materials, product design elements like tethered caps, labeling and extended producer responsibility or other fees to finance recycling.
"It could become more expensive to produce your products," he said, but also noted it still not clear what will be in any final treaty.
"Nothing is ultimately agreed upon and all of this stuff can change," said Krieger, who has been part of the association's delegation to the negotiations.
Still, he noted one area where there's discussions about something that would be a dramatic change — fees on plastic resin to help fund treaty objectives like better waste management and recycling.
At the last round of treaty negotiations, in Canada in April, a proposal from the Minderoo Foundation for a $90 per metric ton resin fee attracted a lot of interest in an official panel held as part of the talks.
"I think that a [resin] fee could show up," Krieger said. "I don't know what it will look like, but it is a likelihood. There are a lot of people who were interested in that."
He said the plastics association, which is based in Washington, has several priorities in the talks, including that the treaty affirms the benefits of plastics in society, as well as focuses on plastic in the environment rather than regulating plastics overall, and have country-specific plans for implementing the agreement.
The association is also pushing for Operation Clean Sweep to be in the treaty as a "gold standard" for limiting pellet loss, and it wants the treaty to avoid duplicate chemical regulatory measures in other global treaties, he said.
Krieger said the plastics association believes the treaty should be something that the U.S. government can sign and that could pass the Senate.
He said that the outcome of the U.S. presidential race will impact how the treaty is implemented, with either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump administrations taking very different approaches.
"It would be very difficult to see anything at the federal level that would be implemented on this agreement whatsoever," he said. "I think a Harris administration would try to do something, but most of it will be very contingent on what the Senate looks like next year."
"Right now that looks like it's going to be very narrowly Republican, and so I think there's just a limited ability for the federal government to put in big changes," he said. "California and many of the other states that are much more little 'p' and big 'P' progressive on these topics will be where all of the action happens."
Registration for the Plastics Caps + Closures is free for PN subscribers in advance of the event.
