Meeting in Uruguay marks major step in Global plastics treaty
Author: Daniel Ball
On the back of the announcement of the treaty and the INC’s there was a clammer from businesses to align themselves with major names in the plastics industry to protect interests and potentially innovate. The ‘business coalition for a plastics treaty’ Major industry names such as Packem and Borealis aim to work together with brands such as Coca-Cola and Nestle to: ‘the reduce plastic production and use through a circular economy approach, increased circulation of all necessary plastics, and the prevention and remediation of hard-to-abate micro- and macro-plastic leakage into the environment.’ There are six key points that have been identified when ‘setting the goalposts’ in regards to the targets and what could be damaging to the negotiation of any possible agreement: failure to control production of virgin polymers, lack of monitoring and reporting obligations, inadequate funding, lack of transparency on chemicals used in plastics production, linear-economy conceptualisation of plastics and maybe most notably not repeating the failures of the Paris agreement which relied heavily on nationally determined contributions (NDCs). NDC’s effectively allowed nations to set what some see as underwhelming targets when combating climate change.