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UN Adopts Mandate for Global Plastics Treaty

The UN Environmental Assembly adopts a resolution aimed at ending plastic pollution through an international, legally binding agreement targeted at 2024.

Eric G

In late February, the United Nations Environmental Assembly, representing officials from 175 countries, adopted a resolution aimed at ending plastic pollution and said it would work toward creating an international, legally binding agreement about it by 2024.

A UN press release said the agreement is the most important “international multilateral environmental deal since the Paris climate accord.”

This agreement could result in a supercharged version of anti-plastics measures of the type we’ve seen for years. In short, uh oh.

As you probably know, there have long been state or local or even national environmental laws worldwide that target packaging and specifically plastics, especially single-use plastics. Those laws do lots of different things, for example calling for packaging to be recyclable, or be made of recyclable materials, or be biodegradable, or be made of less stuff than before, or might give you your choice of those options. Also, more and more examples of “extended producer responsibility” laws are placing financial or other burdens on packaging makers or users.

But now comes this big international treaty with its ominous potential, and it’s scary. Then again, how much worse can it be than the present? Maybe some standardization of the approaches to plastic waste would end up being helpful. Bans on materials wouldn’t be, but provisions for large-scale infrastructure for recycling, for example, would.

Two things are obvious: First, sorry, packaging pals, but packaging will probably always be part of public policy discussions of what to do about solid waste. As far back as at least the 1980s, packaging was about 13 of municipal solid waste in the U.S., and today it’s about 28%.

Second, and obviously, no one, including plastics makers and users, likes those photos showing absurd amounts of plastic waste floating in oceans and waterways. The question is what to do about it, with some voices advocating doing away with plastic articles themselves, while industry and others want to see better solid waste handling solutions.

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