The failure to forge a global treaty on plastics

While plastics are now an integral part of everyday life, the pollution caused by them has become a major health and environmental hazard. In 2022, the UN Environment Assembly finally decided to negotiate a global treaty to contend with plastic pollution. As many as 184 countries gathered in Geneva a few weeks ago for another round of talks aiming to develop a meaningful framework to tackle this problem. Despite high hopes, the outcome of these talks has not produced any significant results.

There seems to remain an irreconcilable divide between the group of more than 100 countries on one side, and the oil and gas producing nations on the other hand, which has prevented consensus on a Global Plastics Treaty. Countries like China, India, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the US are still refusing to concede to the growing demand of setting production caps on new plastic production. Instead, these countries only want to focus on curbing plastic pollution via recycling, reuse and proper waste management.

However, environmentalists point out that plastic production caps remain vital, given that less than 10% of all the plastic waste generated globally is recyclable. Without any curbs, global plastic production is projected to continue growing, potentially by 70% in the next 15 years.

While in principle, most plastic materials could be recycled; in practice, recycling faces many practical barriers. UN agencies have identified the barriers preventing increased plastic recycling. Plastic waste is often contaminated with labels, food remains or other materials. Putting contaminated plastics into the recycling process can contaminate the recycling process by lowering the quality of recycled products and even damaging recycling equipment.

Plastics also contain a complex blend of chemical additives to obtain specific properties such as flexibility, particular colours or added resilience. Recycling plastic products with such additives is complicated, and can be hazardous, if not done right. There are also numerous types of plastic, each with its unique properties, so all plastic cannot be processed together. This makes collection, sorting and treatment both complicated and expensive. Finally, each time that plastic is recycled, its quality degrades. So, most plastics are only recycled once or twice. Thus, recycling is not really the answer to the plastic pollution problem.

Getting rid of plastics completely is going to be very difficult, primarily because they are so amazingly versatile. Plastic use has grown rapidly in the packaging of food and other consumer items, in making construction materials, electronics, and even medical equipment. However, once discarded, plastics degrade into microplastics which contaminate the air, freshwater and the oceans. Microplastics have made their way into the food chain, and traces of microplastics can now readily be found within human bodies.

While some countries like Sweden and Iceland have taken major steps to reduce plastic use, there is no country in the world that is plastic-free. In many populous countries like our own, plastic use is rampant, as is the pollution caused by discarded plastics.

Pakistan is estimated to generate around three million tonnes of plastic waste annually, much of which is improperly disposed of. Plastic thus ends up in landfills, it is scattered across urban and rural terrains, and it makes its way into waterways, from where it enters the food-chain. Plastics clog up the sewage and drainage infrastructure in major cities, and the uncontrolled burning of plastics poisons the air.

It is important for resource-constrained countries like Pakistan to have a broader framework to deal with this menace. The formulation of a comprehensive global plastic treaty could, for instance, provide financial and technical support for bolstering plastic waste management infrastructure, promoting the design of reusable and recyclable products, and effectively regulating high-risk plastics. But all these steps will prove insufficient if an increasing amount of plastic keeps being produced.