Resin makers, brand owners differ on plastics treaty priorities

As the third round of global plastics treaty talks ended under a cloud Nov. 19, signs of some splits over priorities emerged between the plastics industry and other business sectors.

In comments Nov. 20, a group of mostly plastics resin makers active in the negotiations, the Global Partners for Plastics Circularity, emphasized demand-side solutions like boosting recycled content and improving waste collection.

A coalition of investors and major consumer brands, however, said the treaty should broaden to include supply-side solutions like reducing plastics production and restrictions on "problematic" plastics or chemicals.

That group, the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, also backed better recycling and waste management.

The differences between industries over how broad the treaty should be mirrored differences between nations at the talks, which stalled on some key issues as oil and petrochemical producing nations pushed for a more limited vision of the treaty.

Negotiations concluded late in the day Nov. 19 with some key topics unresolved, including, importantly, a lack of agreement on moving forward on official technical work to lay the groundwork for a more substantive next round of talks.

While the talks faced difficulties, the plastics firms said in their official statement that they saw gains in the third meeting of the treaty's intergovernmental negotiating committee, or INC, which wrapped up seven days of meetings at United Nations offices.

Two more rounds are planned in 2024, with the next one in late April in Canada.

"INC-3 made progress towards an effective and practical plastics agreement," said Benny Mermans, a spokesman for the GPPC and vice president of sustainability for Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. "The [GPPC] commend government negotiators for improving the Zero Draft by adding additional elements needed to accomplish the agreement's intent — ending plastic pollution."

GPPC said the talks made headway but it called for stronger language around circularity.

Mermans, who is also the chair of the World Plastics Council, saw growing support for better product design, more reusable packaging, improved financial mechanisms and waste infrastructure.

GPPC sees demand-side investments as the path forward for making plastics more circular.

"This can be best accomplished by creating demand signals that will unlock investments in product design innovations, collection and recycling infrastructure, and financing systems that incentivize circularity to keep used plastics out of landfills, incinerators and our environment," Mermans said.

But for consumer product makers like Mars Inc., Coca-Cola Co. and Nestle that are part of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, any agreement should also consider upstream solutions like eliminating "problematic" plastics that are hard to recycle, cutting back on fossil-based plastics or limiting some production.

"Our vision recognizes the importance of reducing plastic production and use through a circular economy approach, focusing on plastics with high-leakage rates, that are short-lived, and/or are made using fossil-based virgin resources," the coalition said in a Nov. 20 statement.

The coalition said it was worried negotiators would only focus on downstream measures like waste management and recycling, saying it did not believe that would be enough to tackle plastics pollution.

"A significant majority of countries support moving forward with a comprehensive and robust treaty and we applaud their efforts in these challenging negotiations," the coalition said. "However, we are concerned by attempts to narrow the scope of the treaty text to focus only on downstream measures.

"We need action across the entire plastics value chain, and specifically upstream solutions such as: elimination of problematic plastic materials and chemicals of concern, better product design and scaling of reuse and refill systems," it said. "These measures are essential, as we know that recycling and waste management alone are not a viable approach to stop plastic pollution."

In a Plastics News podcast at the previous round of talks, in Paris in May, a business coalition representative said it favors production restrictions because expected growth of in virgin resin could make it difficult to reach the treaty's objectives.

But plastics groups said they saw more opposition to plastics production caps at the Kenya round than in Paris, including Japan, India, Singapore, South Korea and more than a dozen others.

GPPC said its members are investing billions of dollars in projects for the plastics circular economy.

It said national action plans called for in the treaty could spur more spending, and it said a demand-side approach would accomplish more than restrictions on plastics supply.

"The agreement holds the potential to unleash even greater investment by requiring national action plans to have circularity targets, such as reuse and/or recycling rates, and requiring recycled content in plastic packaging and products," Mermans said. "This would avoid the unintended consequences of supply-side constraints of a material essential to meeting the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals."

GPPC also pointed to calls in the treaty for more transparency and information around the health impacts and use of plastics additives, and it said the International Council of Chemical Associations, which is part of the GPPC, is working on a plastics additives database.

The business coalition, however, said it was disappointed in how the talks ended, with no agreement on key intersessional technical work and calls from some countries to scale back on the coalition's priorities.

"We were disappointed to see a proliferation of alternative text proposals during this round of negotiations, including calls for the deletion of key provisions related to primary plastic polymers, identification of chemicals and polymers of concern, as well as problematic and avoidable plastic products," it said.

"The lack of agreement on any intersessional work may cause further delays to the negotiation process, which we cannot afford with the limited time left," the coalition said.

Despite the differences in the talks, it said it was apparent that a sizable majority of countries favor a strong treaty.

And the coalition urged countries to have informal consultations ahead of INC-4 in Canada in April, even if they cannot conduct official work.

"Despite the inability of the INC to advance discussions on critical issues, we are encouraged to see the large majority of U.N. member states calling for strong legally binding provisions over the full life cycle of plastics," it said.

A Teddington, England-based Christian charitable organization at the talks, Tearfund, echoed the business coalition's concern. It hopes that opposition to a strong treaty by some fossil-fuel oriented economies would serve as a "wake-up call" to other nations that want an ambitious treaty.

"Plastic use is an escalating crisis in Africa," said Rev. Dennis Nthenge, a Tearfund campaigner and chaplain to the Archbishop of Kenya.

"As we embark on what should be the final year of negotiations, the urgency of a transformative treaty becomes evident for 2 billion individuals facing plastic waste without proper disposal. Meanwhile, agreement to reduce plastic production will be an uphill battle."