Environment: countries negotiate to limit and recycle plastic – 05/29/2023 – Market

As negotiations begin on a global plastics treaty, a debate is emerging between countries that want to limit plastics production and the petrochemical sector, which favors recycling as a solution to plastic waste.

Before the meeting that begins on Monday (29), many countries said that one of the goals of the treaty should be “circularity”, that is, keeping plastic items already produced in circulation for as long as possible.

In the run-up to the Paris talks, a coalition of 55 countries called for a strong treaty that would include restrictions on certain hazardous chemicals, as well as bans on problematic plastic products that are difficult to recycle and often end up in nature.

“We have a treaty responsibility to protect human health in our environment from the most harmful polymers and chemicals,” said Rwandan Environment Minister Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, who is one of the chairpersons of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.

French President Emmanuel Macron said there was “no time to lose” on the issue.

“The aim should be to produce a text that everyone can agree on by the end of 2024, a year before the United Nations Oceans Conference in Nice,” he said in a video message released on Monday.

UNEP (the United Nations Environment Programme), which is organizing the talks, released a plan to reduce plastic waste by 80% by 2040. The report, published earlier this month, outlined three main areas of action: reuse , recycling and redirection of plastic packaging to alternative materials.

Some environmental organizations criticized the report for focusing on waste management, which they saw as a concession to the global plastics and petrochemicals sector.

“Real solutions to the plastics crisis will require global controls on the chemicals used in plastics, and significant reductions in plastics production,” said Therese Karlsson, scientific adviser to the International Pollutant Elimination Network.

A new organization, called Global Partners for Plastics Circularity, has placed mechanical and chemical recycling at the center of its position.

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen told Reuters that the report’s criticism of recycling ignored the study’s broader recommendations for reviewing packaging.

“We’re talking about redesign, and when we talk about redesign, we’re talking about everything we need to do to use less plastic,” she said. “That’s where it all starts”

Concern for public health

During the first round of negotiations, last November, in Uruguay, the countries set an ambitious one-year deadline for signing a legally valid treaty.

So far, delegates continue to wrangle over the treaty’s main goals, including whether some plastics should be banned, and ways to improve waste management.

Countries also still need to resolve important issues, including methods of funding public policies, as well as how policies would be implemented and reported.

This week, dozens of countries listed public health as one of their priority concerns for limiting plastic production and waste. The UNEP report also identified 13,000 chemicals associated with plastic production, of which more than 3,000 were deemed hazardous.

Greenpeace, for its part, published a report compiling scientific research results that suggest that plastic recycling processes can release many of these chemicals, including benzene, into the environment.

While the United States is not a coalition member, a State Department official told Reuters the country shares the group’s ambition but favors an approach in which countries develop their own national action plans, similar to the Paris accord. about the weather.

The United States plans, along with UNEP, to announce a grant this week to help developing countries take immediate action against plastic pollution.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau in Paris. Translated by Paulo Migliacci