We need a Global Plastics Treaty as soon as possible.
Plastic is an amazing material: it’s durable, light, flexible, and affordable, and it’s used to make millions of products that billions of people use every day. But it is also having devastating impacts on the environment, on wildlife, and on human health. This is why we need a Global Plastics Treaty: to regulate plastic production, and ensure that when it becomes waste, as 280 million tonnes do every year – it does as little harm as possible to people and the planet.
Yet, despite the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) giving UN Member states a mandate to negotiate a legally binding instrument to regulate plastic pollution in 2022, as we near the end of 2025, such a treaty still feels a long way away. Indeed, in August of this year, after ten days of ‘marathon talks’ on what a Global Plastics Treaty could look like, negotiations ended in a stalemate.
This article will briefly explain why a Global Plastics Treaty is so essential, ask why international negotiations to secure one have stalled so far? And provide meaningful actions you can take to help secure a Plastics Treaty as soon as possible.
The plastic paradox : the true cost of “cost-effectiveness” and convenience
Simply put, a plastic is a material that can be moulded by heat and pressure. While there are lots of examples of natural plastics – amber, rubber, tortoiseshell – when talking about plastics we are usually referring to synthetic plastics, those man-made by chemical synthesis.
In 1907, building on decades of plastics experiments, Leo Baekeland created the first fully synthetic plastic – Bakelite. Thus followed the ‘Plastics century’, as cellophane, vinyl, PVDC, acrylic, polyurethanes, polystyrene, teflon and nylon were discovered, and replaced other, traditional, materials in the production of household products. Owing to the convenience and cost-effectiveness of producing plastics, more and more products, from our toothbrushes, to our food containers, to our clothes, came to be made from this ‘miracle material’ across the 20th century. Indeed today, it is virtually impossible to move through our days without using dozens of plastic products.
Unfortunately however, the way we produce, manage and dispose of plastic products is deeply harmful to human and animal health, and the environment. Indeed, 99% of plastics are made of fossil fuels, largely crude oil, and making plastic “is one of the most energy-intensive manufacturing processes in the world” (UNEP, 2023). Whatsmore, ‘[p]lastics production is expected to be one of the leading drivers of oil demand growth over the coming years’, when we urgently need to be transitioning away from fossil fuels (Carbonbrief, 2024). Producing the 430million+ tonnes of plastic we make every year, (estimated to rise to 1.2 billion tons by 2060) generates billions of metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, directly contributing to the climate crisis.
Additionally, over 280 million tonnes (this statistic is from 2019, the current figure is likely much higher) of this plastic becomes waste after a single, or very small number of, use(s) (UNEP, 2023). Only 9% is successfully recycled, with around 46% of plastic waste going straight to landfill, 19% incinerated and a further 22% is mismanaged, becoming litter (ibid). What’s worse? Annual global plastic waste is expected to triple by 2060 if we continue production and consumption at our current trajectory.
Plastic waste is choking our oceans, polluting our air and impacting human and animal health in ways we have yet fully to understand. Plastic waste is especially dangerous because synthetic plastics don’t biodegrade like other materials but disintegrate, or degrade, very slowly, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, forming microplastics and nanoplastics. Microplastics – plastic fragments between one nanometer and five millimetres or less in length – are now found from the Arctic to Antarctica, from the bottom of the Mariana Trench, to the peak of Mount Everest, and from marine life, to human brain tissue.
At this point most people will probably have heard of micro-plastics, and understand they are bad for people and the planet without needing to know the details of why. But, as researchers increasingly investigate the effects of microplastics on living creatures, they are finding that “exposure to microplastics induces a variety of toxic effects, including oxidative stress, metabolic disorder, immune response, neurotoxicity, as well as reproductive and developmental toxicity” (Li, Tao, Wang et al., 2023).
Regulating the production, life-cycle and waste-management of plastic is therefore an urgent, global public health and planetary issue.
Towards a Global Plastics Treaty: headway and hurdles.
In March 2022, the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) adopted resolution 5/14, a historic resolution which gave UN Member States a mandate to develop an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) on plastic pollution – a Global Plastics Treaty.
The resolution called for the creation of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to discuss and decide the details of such a treaty, with the aim to achieve “sustainable production and consumption of plastics through, among other things, product design and environmentally sound waste management, including through resource efficiency and circular economy approaches” (UNEA 5/14. 3b). 183 Member States are represented in the INC, and resolution 5/14 stated its ambition that negotiations would result in a finalised treaty by the end of 2024.
Before the first meeting of the INC a Plastics Science paper (UNEP/PP/INC.1/7), was created by a working group to provide the factual basis of the treaty and four strategic goals for the INC to discuss. These were:
- Reduce the size of the problem by eliminating and substituting problematic and unnecessary plastic items.
- Design circular plastic products (reusable, recyclable or compostable).
- Close the loop of plastic in the economy by ensuring that plastic products are circulated in practice (reused, recycled, or composted).
- Manage plastic waste that cannot be reused or recycled in an environmentally sound manner.
Yet, despite the INC having met in Punta del Este in 2022 (INC-1), in Paris in 2023 (INC-2), in Nairobi in 2023 (INC-3), in Ottawa in 2024 (INC-4), in Busan in late 2024 (INC-5.1) and, most recently in Geneva in August 2025 (INC-5.2), no Global Plastics Treaty has been secured. After months of intersessional research and workshopping, and years now of focused international negotiations, there is still no internationally legally binding instrument. Why is this?
Well, from the very beginning, Member States (MS) disagreed over the scope, ambition, and implementation mechanisms of the treaty. Two main factions emerged early on, on the one hand a ‘High Ambition Coalition’ (HAC) a group of states led by Norway and Rwanda, including many African and Central American states, Canada, Australia, Japan, several European countries, the European Union and the United Kingdom, who have pushed for an “instrument based on a comprehensive and circular approach that ensures urgent action and effective interventions along the full lifecycle of plastics”. On the other, a coalition of ‘like-minded countries’, predominantly oil-rich countries or petro-states, led by Saudi Arabia, and including Russia, China, Iran, Bahrain, Cuba, and the USA, who have attempted to water down ambition, promote voluntary measures, and focus the treaty on waste management. While nearly all MS have largely agreed that we need to improve and regulate ‘downstream’ considerations – waste management of plastics and improving global recycling infrastructure – there has been no such consensus on midstream or upstream plastic production. Essentially throughout negotiations so far, only point 4 from those listed above has been widely agreed on.
At INC-4 in Ottawa, which was intended to be the penultimate meeting of the committee, the majority of time was spent attempting to streamline the draft treaty ahead of what was hoped to be the final meeting of the INC in Busan. However during negotiations a further 2,000 brackets were added to the text – each indicating that a stipulation had not been agreed on – and leaving a “staggering total of 3,686 brackets to be resolved” by the close of discussions at INC-5 (Ballerini, 2024). It was still hoped that when Member States met in Busan, for the fifth session (INC-5.1), it would be the final session. To this end 40 countries and regions signed a declaration titled the Bridge to Busan. However, despite the high ambitions of this group of signatories, the HAC, and the majority of countries who were in favour of an ambitious and legally binding treaty, talks once again fell apart in Busan, no treaty was agreed, and another meeting was called in Geneva in 2025. Last month in Geneva 80 countries rejected the first draft proposed and, after a second failed to gain traction, talks adjourned with no date scheduled to meet again.
There are (at least) four key reasons for the failure to secure a Global Plastics Treaty so far.
The first is that the like-minded group of oil-rich nations have been very resistant to proposals to regulate, reduce, or ban plastic production (since, as mentioned above, 99% of plastics are made from crude oil) and have consistently challenged and undermined references to the “whole life cycle of plastic”. Whereas the HAC and over 50 signatories of Bridge to Busan have called for “a global objective regarding the sustainable production of primary plastic polymers”, including “production freezes at specified levels, production reductions against agreed baselines, or other agreed constraints to prevent the unsustainable production of primary plastic polymers” (Declaration on Primary Plastic Polymers, 2024). They have stated “[a]ddressing the unsustainable production of primary plastic polymers is not only essential to ending plastic pollution worldwide; it also represents one of the most efficient and cost-effective approaches to managing the plastic pollution problem” (ibid.). In contrast the like-minded group has rejected articles and clauses to this effect at every opportunity, instead pushing for a treaty based on voluntary measures, “focused on waste management, especially recycling”, arguing that “there is no need to limit production if the end product is tackled” (Marsden, 2025).
As we globally transition away from an international energy system reliant on fossil fuels, with global oil demand set to peak around 2030, it makes sense that those nations rich in oil want to protect their economies and are hesitant to sign off on a legally binding instrument that would curtail their majority exports within the coming decade. However, given the risk posed by plastics to human and planetary health, tackling the plastics crisis will inevitably require reducing the production of plastics, through eliminating unnecessary production, and increasing circular economic measures. This conflict of interests is arguably the main reason that talks so far have stalled.
The second significant point of tension across the INC meetings so far has been how to fund the ILBI. Some countries have suggested the treaty’s implementation should be funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), others that a new dedicated fund should be created, others a hybrid approach. As Tosca Ballerini, marine biologist and scientific journalist, writes “[m]uch more significant, however, was the lack of support for the proposal of a global plastic tax, which could have been a “tremendous income generator” and would have made the polluter-pays principle operational” (Ballerini, 2024). However, states are very hesitant to impose a plastic tax, despite the benefits it would confer, owing to increasing use of investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) – corporate courts that give “companies the power to sue governments outside of the national legal system, over policies such as environmental protection or health regulation which they allege harm their profits” (Global Justice Now, 2025).
State reticence to extend producer responsibilities (EPR) or introduce a ‘global plastic tax’ to fund the treaty’s implementation can also be attributed to the extremely high presence of petro-chemical and fossil fuel lobbyists present at each meeting of the INC – the third key reasons why efforts to secure a Global Plastics Treaty so far have failed. At INC-4, for example, from a total of 2500 participants, there were 196 chemical and fossil fuel lobbyists – a 37% increase from the number at INC-3 – outnumbering the representatives from 70 states combined. At Busan (INC-5.1) this figure rose to 220 lobbyists, and, at Geneva (INC-5.2) this rose to 234 (at a conservative estimate). Such high numbers of lobbyists – whose interests directly conflict with the aims of the treaty – outnumbering any single delegation, and far exceeding the number of health and scientist representatives – have actively worked to undermine the treaty at every stage. Von Hernandes, from Break Free From Plastic has noted that “Allowing fossil fuel and petrochemical companies to exert their influence in these negotiations is like letting foxes guard the henhouse…Their oversized presence threatens to turn a critical environmental agreement into a charade”. And, so far, that is what has come to pass. Over six rounds of negotiations petro-chemical lobbyists have spread misinformation around the health impacts of plastic, harassed scientists giving evidence to the contrary, and succeeded in stalling political action.
The fourth key reason a treaty has not been agreed upon so far is procedure. At the moment the way the instrument is being negotiated is by consensus rule, meaning every MS involved has to agree, or at least not disagree too strongly. Accordingly, states like the US, and Saudi Arabia have been able to veto any proposals deemed too ambitious or restrictive so far. Proposals to amend the Rules of Procedure to move to majority voting have so far been blocked. But amending procedure may yet prove to be an avenue for progress.
A year after the estimated final talks – where do we go from here?
As Plastic Free Communities have stated “While frustrating, no treaty is better than a weak treaty that enables no change.” Therefore, while it is a shame that this crucial instrument has yet to be finalised, there is still lots of hope for its future success, and several actions we can take to encourage this.
While the date and location for negotiations to recommence is being established, the High Ambition Coalition are consolidating their aims and preparing to push for a new, even more ambitious draft even if it means ‘moving without the petro-states in tow’ (PFC, 2025). There is mounting support for process reform when talks continue, to move away from the consensus model and towards voting instead to avoid future stalemate situations.
Steps you can take today to reduce plastics’ harm and help secure a Global Plastic Treaty
- Support campaigns that are aiming to tackle plastic pollution, for example:
- Greenpeace : Ditch Dove This Year
- Join Surfers Against Sewage’s: Plastic Free Communities
- Directly apply pressure on your elected representatives to accelerate phasing out single-use plastics and investing in sustainable alternatives by emailing them, explaining the situation and adding a personal story and that this is an important issue to you
- Until there is an international legally binding instrument to enforce production changes, individual states need to incentivise businesses to move away from unnecessary plastic production. This could be through taxes on single-use products or subsidies for sustainable or at least reusable alternatives.
- Email or lobby your MP, MEP, MS, MSP or representative, and ask that they raise the issue of single use plastics and the dangers they pose to human health and planetary health in government. Demand your government develop a coordinated plan to reduce microplastic pollution.
- Email or lobby your MP, MEP, MS, MSP or representative and demand they call for your state to join the High Ambition Coalition, and continue to advocate for an ambitious ILBI.
- Support circular economy initiatives:
- Borrow items you need infrequently from your local repair cafe rather than buying them new and letting them gather dust in a cupboard
- Use redistribution apps like Olio when you have something you no longer need
- Buy second hand through charity shops, Vinted, Gumtree, Ebay rather than buying new items
- Organise clothes swaps with your friends, at work or at the local community centre
- Buy food from local markets where possible, where produce isn’t wrapped in single-use plastic.
- Remove plastic litter from your community
- Join a local litter picking or beach cleaning group to ensure that plastic litter doesn’t harm wildlife or water supplies in your local area
- Reduce plastic usage where feasible for you – reduce, reuse, recycle – but don’t stop there. Ensure that any personal measures are accompanied by some energy directed towards system change. Either through pressuring decision-makers to change the system, or by directly supporting initiatives that promote sustainable consumption, such as repair cafes and libraries of things, resisting plastic primacy and hyper-consumerism.
Be Curious!
- Why not try emailing your elected representative for the first time stressing the importance of this issue?
- Find out if there are any plastic free shops near you, or which local supermarket has the best record on single use plastics.
- Learn more about the history of plastics, and how we can develop a more sustainable relationship with this miracle material in the future, read Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.
Feature image by Antoine Giret via Unsplash
