Plastics Production Is Skyrocketing. A New U.N. Treaty Effort Could Cap It.
By Michael Birnbaum and Min Joo Kim | February 8, 2022 | Washington Post
Negotiators from around the world will start work this month on a treaty to reduce plastic pollution, in what diplomats say is the most ambitious round of climate diplomacy since the 2015 Paris agreement that focuses on global warming.
The discussions, which have the backing of the Biden administration, could reshape a world increasingly awash in plastics that take centuries to break down and millennia to decompose. Diplomats could agree to caps on plastic production that would forestall the exponential increases that are expected in the coming decades. They could also impose rules to make plastic easier and less toxic to repurpose, amid growing concern that only 10 percent of the material ever made has been recycled.
Talks are so preliminary that diplomats are still haggling over the issues they will and won’t negotiate. And few expect immediate breakthroughs. But officials say there is a window during President Biden’s current term in office to make a deal that would shake up the realm of plastics with the cooperation of the United States, the world’s biggest producer of plastic waste per person.
“Countries are increasingly seeing this as a top-level threat,” said Norwegian Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide, who is leading the effort to start work on a plastics deal at the U.N. Environment Assembly, which starts Feb. 28 in Nairobi. “There has been strong recognition around the world. This is one of the most stable materials we produce. Using it for a single use, it’s strange.”
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Diplomats are still at the most preliminary phase of deciding what should even be subject to negotiation. At minimum, there is broad agreement that there should be a concerted effort to limit the flow of plastic debris into the world’s oceans. But a growing number of countries, including the United States, want to aim for more-ambitious targets.