The final straw? Plastic pollution talks get underway in Geneva

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Efforts are getting underway in Geneva to finalize a global agreement to tackle the staggering and growing amount of plastic waste and its impact on human health, marine life and the economy.

Unless an international accord is inked, plastic waste is projected to triple by 2060, causing significant damage – including to human health – according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The UNEP-led talks follow a decision in 2022 by Member States to develop an international legally binding instrument to end the plastic pollution crisis, including in the world’s seas, within two years.

The scale of the problem is massive, with straws, cups and stirrers, carrier bags and cosmetics containing microbeads; just a few of the single-use products ending up in our oceans and landfill sites.

Supporters of a deal have compared it to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord in terms of its significance. They have also pointed to the pressure allegedly being brought to bear against a deal by petrostates, whose crude oil and natural gas industries provide the raw material for plastics production.

“We will not recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis: we need a systemic transformation to achieve the transition to a circular economy,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen has insisted.

Circular argument

The aim of the deal is for it to encompass the full life cycle of plastics, from design to production and disposal “to promote plastic circularity and prevent leakage of plastics in the environment”, according to the text being used to guide the talks of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) gathering in the Swiss city.

At 22 pages, the INC document contains 32 draft articles which will be discussed line by line. The text is designed to shape the future instrument and will serve as a starting point for negotiations.

10-day stint

For 10 days from 5-14 August, delegations from 179 countries are due to pore over the INC text as they meet at UN Geneva, alongside more than 1,900 other participants from 618 observer organizations including scientists, environmentalists and industry representatives.

A key aim of the meeting is to share tried and tested ways of reducing plastic use such as non-plastic substitutes and other safer alternatives.

Ahead of the talks in Geneva, the respected medical journal The Lancet published a warning that the materials used in plastics cause extensive disease “at every stage of the plastics life cycle and at every stage of human life”.

According to more than two dozen health experts cited in the journal, infants and young children are particularly vulnerable. “Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health” and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding $1·5 trillion annually”, it noted.

To follow the plastic pollution talks live on UN Web TV, click here.

Leading the talks in Geneva is Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (or the INC) on Plastic Pollution, and Head of the INC Secretariat.

“In 2024 alone, humanity was projected to consume over 500 million tonnes of plastic. Of this, 399 million tonnes will become waste,” she said.

Latest forecasts indicate that plastic leakage into the environment will grow 50 per cent by 2040. “The cost of damages from plastic pollution could rise as high as a cumulative $281 trillion between 2016 and 2040,” she maintained.

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The road to an international accord:

Five negotiation sessions towards a plastics treaty have taken place so far…

• The first was in Uruguay in November 2022.
• Two more followed in 2023 – in France and Kenya.
• In April 2024, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) convened in Canada.
• Most recently, discussions took place in Busan, Republic of Korea, at the end of last year. These talks were adjourned after delegations agreed to resume discussions in Geneva, under the leadership of the Chair of the Committee, Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso of Ecuador.