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Doug Woodring

Justin Robertson

Global plastic pollution has finally made it to the forefront of the international agenda, with a United Nations-backed plastic treaty under negotiation for the past two years but with an unsuccessful conclusion in Busan, South Korea, last week.
The collapse of the expected final round of negotiations is a cause for concern but UN treaties can require longer negotiation periods to build the needed consensus for approval by all member states.
With fast-growing middle classes in emerging economies and plastic’s unique place in our supply chains, it is evident that plastic pollution will remain one of the most complex environmental issues of our time to resolve.
Several millions of tons of plastic end up in our natural environments every year. Landfills or burning are not the containment solutions we want to be aiming for.
Topics discussed during the talks included the use of chemical inputs, supply levels of plastic and financing mechanisms to handle expected consumption increases. In particular, two areas are preventing real progress.
The media often frames negotiations as pitting plastic reduction – widely supported except by the main producers – against plastic recycling, which is supported by the main producers. Such framing unfairly treats recycling as an inferior practice whose supporters are linked to recalcitrant states and business interests. Plastic reduction and plastic recycling are not mutually exclusive.


Second, the trade of qualified plastic feedstock for recycling regrettably seems to have been relegated to a minor role. The negotiations have mainly focused on reduction and reuse models, extended producer responsibility programmes, taxes and other mechanisms to restrain the demand and production of plastic.
Even in the best-case scenario, our modelling suggests that these two levers would generate a significant, but still inadequate, 30 per cent reduction in plastic pollution by 2040.
This means that at least 70 per cent of what is produced still needs to be remediated or circulated. That is precisely why a recycling option is needed with a new collective focus on scale and success, which has not been the case in decades past.
The way forward is to ingrain the concept of a circular economy into the treaty. Though a circular economy is often generically referenced as a goal, its implementation has not been focused on. A starting point would be to stop regarding plastic as waste after first use. Not everything that gets disposed of is necessarily waste. It can become valuable feedstock for reprocessing.
Encouragingly, it appears that NGO awareness-building on this nuance in the negotiations in Busan resulted in the removal of the word “disposal” from the draft treaty and its linear connotation for end-of-life material. This opens the door for the environmentally sound recovery and processing of material, thus reducing waste impacts by large volumes.

Doubts about the effectiveness of recycling should be re-examined. With the right enabling factors, we estimate that global recycling rates could, in a well-designed treaty, more than double by 2040 to more than 60 million tons annually.
The low plastic recycling rates in Hong Kong and the US are the result of misaligned incentives and poor system design rather than anything fundamentally wrong with recycling itself. Recycling is fully capable of driving circular systems in plastic if the collection and recovery of material is improved within the world’s municipal waste systems.
With legislated minimum recycled content requirements for products and packaging, demand for and investment in recycling capacities is likely to increase, thus bringing needed value and innovation to collected and recovered materials.
Standardised and efficient guidelines for the trade of verified and approved plastic feedstock can create new supply chains from countries that have the necessary materials, but few capacities for processing, to qualified processors and users.


These measures can turn the plastic treaty into a central element of a healthy global circular economy, creating value for collected material while helping to avoid burning and dumping. This approach broadens economic opportunities for countries at all stages of development.
Should negotiators continue to sidestep markets and global trade, national governments will be asked to prioritise plastic bans and taxes, with the likely result being incomplete environmental progress based on highly varied domestic outcomes.
The UN plastic treaty must align with the Basel Convention – which is tasked with the international control of hazardous waste – in setting rules for the trade of recyclable material that will fuel the recovery and processing of plastic at scale.
We have an opportunity to empower delegates at the Basel Convention’s 17th Conference of the Parties (Cop17) in 2025 to align with the UN plastic treaty and enable the proper, trusted circular flow of plastic feedstock.

Plastic pollution touches every UN member state. No one wants to miss the opportunity to create an efficient treaty that helps reduce the impact of pollution.
The UN plastic treaty negotiations and next year’s Cop17 under the Basel Convention are ideally sequenced to promote a trusted global circular economy that helps to recover, and therefore remediate, large-scale volumes of plastic, which in today’s systems, are too often rendered valueless.
Alongside politically demanding but effective approaches of reuse models, alternative materials, extended producer responsibility programmes and taxes, circularity and trade can help foster cleaner natural environments, healthier communities, green jobs, private investment opportunities and a more sustainable use of resources.


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Climate change

Why the world shouldn’t give up on plastic recycling

A man walks next to bags of plastic waste at a recycling site near Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 17. Photo: AFP

The head of delegations from the European Union, Fiji, Panama and the Federated States of Micronesia speak at a press conference in Busan, South Korea, on November 29, during talks to formalise a legally binding treaty on plastic pollution. Photo: AFP

A man sitting on a wooden boat collects plastic waste floating in Citarum River in West Java province, Indonesia, on June 13. Photo: Reuters

Opinion

World Opinion

News

World

Economy

Global Economy

Policy

Instead of pitting recycling and reduction goals against each other, negotiators should consider solutions proven to remediate plastic waste


Instead of pitting recycling and reduction goals against each other, negotiators should consider solutions proven to remediate plastic waste.


Environment

Sustainability

Waste Management

Recycling and waste reduction

United Nations

Diplomacy

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Why the world shouldn’t give up on plastic recycling

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Instead of pitting recycling and reduction goals against each other, negotiators should consider solutions proven to remediate plastic waste

Instead of pitting recycling and reduction goals against each other, negotiators should consider solutions proven to remediate plastic waste