Industry lobbies to catch the attention of plastics treaty negotiators

Ottawa, Ontario — As protesters maintained a vigil outside the United Nations plastics treaty negotiating venue in Ottawa this week, one industry group was inside a nearby hotel ballroom with its own efforts to reach diplomats, an exhibition showing potential solutions to recycling and waste challenges.

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste organized a fair it called "Circularity in Action: Solutions for Change," with about 40 exhibits from companies and industry groups highlighting efforts they say can address environmental challenges.

"What we're encouraging is to have delegates that are attending the negotiation come through and get a sense of what's possible," said Nicholas Kolesch, vice president of projects at the Singapore-based AEPW.

"It's not about focusing only on the problem; that's obviously where you need to start," he said. "But you also need to focus on the solutions, of which there are many."

It's the first time the industry has organized such an effort at plastics treaty talks. The Ottawa round, taking place April 23-29 in the Canadian capital, is the fourth treaty negotiating session, following similar diplomatic gatherings in Uruguay, France and Kenya in the last 18 months.

The AEPW-sponsored fair included specific exhibits from companies on recycling efforts and technologies, as well as broader projects in Indonesia, South Africa and other places.

Visitors have included diplomats from Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain and the United States, among other countries, as well as treaty observers from environmental and civil society groups.

Dignitaries also came by, including Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who led a congressional delegation to the talks. Merkley is a key sponsor of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act.

Kolesch said he led Merkley on a tour and the senator asked a lot of detailed questions, including about bottle recycling, since Oregon is one of 10 U.S. states with a container deposit system.

"He was tremendously interested in many of the stations," Kolesch said. "In particular, he was spending time with Tomra at their reverse vending machine station. He seemed to have quite an engagement there, knowing that his state of Oregon has a bottle bill, one of the most advanced in the country."

The exhibits were broken into several thematic groups, including design and material selection, recycling efforts including both mechanical and chemical processes, as well as technology, like handheld sorting devices for plastic waste and robotics and artificial intelligence used in large-scale automated sorting.

Other exhibits included details on larger projects in Indonesia and South Africa, efforts to support workers in the informal waste sector, and AEPW reports and data.

There were some Canada-specific exhibitors, including Cleanfarms, an extended producer responsibility system for agricultural plastic waste, and recycler Merlin Plastics.

Susan Jackson, head of communications and sustainability for materials maker BASF Corp., was at the fair, where the company was exhibiting both a handheld device for sorting recycled plastic made by its Trinamix subsidiary and its chemical recycling technology.

She said the exhibition provides some "tangible proof points" for diplomats and observer groups in the negotiations. Jackson said her time meeting with visitors emphasized the need for communications.

"It's just been interesting to hear people express their views, and understanding that really some of it comes down to [whether] we all on the same page on definitions," she said. "When people start talking about extended producer responsibility, what does it mean to you and are we talking the same way?"

Another exhibitor in the event, the Indonesia National Plastics Action Partnership, said it wanted to emphasize cooperation.

"We want to tell anybody who really cares about the plastic pollution, including the delegates and also the observers, we want to tell them that collaboration is really key to tackle plastic pollution, especially in Indonesia," said Bunga Karnisa, community coordinator for the partnership.

The head of one industry trade group said the AEPW exhibition is part of larger communications efforts from plastics companies at this round of the talks, which are called meetings of the intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC).

"I think particularly compared to prior INCs, we're really communicating well," said Ross Eisenberg, the head of plastics within the American Chemistry Council. "For groups like AEPW, the fact that they wanted to come here and do this is a great sign. It's time to be talking about those solutions."

This round of talks seems to include more public advocacy and protest in general, compared with previous rounds. It also saw twice as many delegates and observers, about 4,200, as any previous plastics treaty talks.

Protesters held a march on April 21 and maintained a daily vigil across the street from the negotiating hall. They asked for cuts in plastic production and use, limits on toxic chemicals in plastics, more reusable packaging systems and for the treaty to take a human rights-based approach.

As well, box trucks with electronic billboards roamed the streets with messages, and signs greeted arrivals at Ottawa's airport.

A truck for The Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty told passersby that "Business Needs Global Rules," while an unidentified group had pro-plastics messages on trucks and in ads at a nearby hotel that said "These Plastics Reduce Food Waste" or "These Plastics Save Lives," with pictures of food packaging or medical devices.

There was also some political theater.

Groups projected images on buildings with a plastic fork giving viewers a digital middle finger as part of a "Plastics doesn't give a fork" campaign.

Fliers asking "What will it take to cut plastic production?" were put under some hotel doors, and restrooms often had signs taped to them that looked like official health warnings advising that "Delegates must wash hands after meeting with oil and plastics industries."

Amid all that public back-and-forth, AEPW officials said they saw their efforts as a success, although Kolesch hedged on whether they'll do something similar at the fifth and final scheduled round of talks in November in South Korea: "It's certainly something we'd consider.

"It's been a success," Kolesch said. "From the delegations that have come through, the member companies and other actors from civil society, from the nongovernmental sector, I think there's been a great response."