Category Archives: Plastic Pollution Articles & News

Toxic Tours, a new initiative by #breakfreefromplastic, is giving people an inside look at some of the planet’s dirtiest secrets. Instead of your typical tour that focuses on history or scenery, Toxic Tours takes you via video to the epicenters of nasty air, water and soil pollution.

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Conceived by environmental justice organizations, Toxic Tours raises awareness on the toxic impacts of plastic production on frontline communities, according to #breakfreefromplastic consultant Estelle Eonnet. Frontline communities are often composed of low-income residents and/or people of color who bear the first and worst consequences of climate change.
Related: Innovative biomaterials to help the world replace plastic
“Toxic tours have been organized in person by local organizations and communities for decades,” Eonnet said. “The goal of the project was to amplify these local stories at a global level. On the Toxic Tours platform, frontline communities can directly share their stories and map the petrochemical build-outs around their homes.“

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This isn’t poverty tourism, where outsiders gawk at the poor locals. Instead, all Toxic Tours footage is filmed by community members and local environmental justice groups who want to raise awareness of the conditions forced upon them.  

International tour of the website
The Toxic Tours site launched on Jan. 27 and provides interpretation in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Filipino, Mandarin and Hindi. From the homepage, you can click on Asia, Europe, Africa, USA or Latin America, which takes you to a map of the region. Featured cities are clearly marked.
For example, click on Manali, India. You’ll learn that the country’s Central Pollution Control Board has categorized the area as critically polluted for almost a decade. You can see a video about the petrochemical cluster stretching from North Chennai to Manali, which is the site of more than 30 polluting industries. Resident M.K. Elampazhuthi talks about the sewage and petroleum waste in the Buckingham Canal of Chennai, and local youths model awful face masks they made to help them breathe outside. They look like homemade gas masks.
In Turkana County, Kenya, you’ll learn about the lands rights and health risks issues created by new oil extraction activities. Julius Loyolo shows a public latrine that multinational oil company Tullow built for the community. Nice to have toilets, but the company still hasn’t addressed worries about land ownership, employment and health.
“Environmental justice organizations work closely with community members to capture the pressing issues that the communities face, due to the petrochemical build outs,” said Eonnet. “The Toxic Tour platform remains open to members of frontline communities, who continue to pin their stories to the map.”

Toxic U.S.
The U.S. also gets its star turn on the Toxic Tours platform. In fact, instead of having a North America section, there’s just USA. The platform features “Cancer Alley,” an 85-mile corridor along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Cancer Alley is known for the country’s highest concentration of petrochemical plants and refineries. It also has the most particulate pollution and highest cancer rates. The EPA determined that the risk of getting cancer from air pollution here is 95% higher than for people living in other parts of the country. Most of Cancer Alley’s damage is in predominantly Black and low income communities.
In California, Diego Mayen leads a toxic tour of West Long Beach.
“My community is affected by the petrochemical industry at every stage of the production of plastic,” he said. “From the extraction of oil, there are oil drills next to people’s homes in Wilmington and also in Long Beach.”
Residents also contend with 40% of the nation’s goods transiting through their neighborhood, multiple refineries operating 24/7 and incineration.
“We live next to one of two incinerators in California that burns trash from over a thousand cities, including more affluent communities,” Mayen said in his video. In his 21 years, he’s experienced health impacts such as headaches and nosebleeds linked to incinerator fires. Lots of his friends have asthma. “I don’t think it’s fair that our community should have to wonder if it’s safe to go outside.”

Toxic Tours’ vision
Toxic Tours aims to elevate local voices and ensure that community fights are amplified.
“We need robust regulations for the petrochemical industry, structured by a global treaty on plastics,” Eonett said. “With the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly taking place in Nairobi end of February, it is a crucial time for the public to uncover the negative impacts of plastic production and call on policymakers to support a resolution for a plastics treaty that covers the whole life cycle of plastics.”
Via #breakfreefromplastic

An emerging and controversial vision for reusing plastics poses a regulatory dilemma for EPA as it struggles to tackle plastic pollution woes amid a growing acknowledgment that traditional recycling will not be able to solve the problem.
Facing an onslaught of public outrage over plastics pollution, companies are increasingly turning to new avenues to address the problem, including “chemical recycling.” But their solution has alarmed environmental advocates and ignited environmental justice concerns, placing EPA under pressure.
While simultaneously grappling with mounting pollution realities, EPA is now scrutinizing technologies that convert plastic waste into new products. Industry backers of chemical recycling say it should be regulated as manufacturing. Environmental groups, however, counter that the process is actually a form of incineration and poses environmental and human health hazards.

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“I believe the general public has every right to be both skeptical and concerned,” said Denise Patel, a program director with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, or GAIA, whose organization feels chemical recycling has hidden health costs.
Chemical recycling takes single-use plastics and strips them down to their chemical state, creating products like fuel or other new plastic items. This has concerned environmental groups, who argue plastics are already largely an oil and gas product. Their use in fuel does not fit in with the pivot toward renewable energy that advocates envision.
Meanwhile, industry support for chemical recycling comes as oil and gas companies face increasing pressure over climate change.
Proponents like the American Chemistry Council assert that chemical recycling is critical for solving the conundrum posed by plastics, which are lightweight — a factor in climate considerations — since they are better for energy efficiency purposes. And a large group of backers, including major consumer brands, have thrown their weight behind chemical recycling. Many insist the technologies are essential for meeting recycling goals. Mars Inc., for example, has said its 2025 sustainable packaging plans hinge on the “advancement of chemical recycling at pace and scale and alignment of food safety regulations.”
While EPA’s power is limited, a clear regulatory decision could be a major factor in how chemical recycling evolves. In September, the agency issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking for two technologies, weighing whether pyrolysis and gasification units should be regulated as solid waste incineration (Greenwire, Sept. 7, 2021).
Industry members oppose that framing. “It’s a very flawed way of thinking about it,” said Joshua Baca, ACC’s vice president for plastics. “This is a process that breaks down material back to the molecular building block. Incineration implies that it’s the end of the life of a material.”
EPA’s recycling plan shows the agency sees potential value in the technologies (Greenwire, Nov. 15, 2021). But groups who disagree are escalating their pressure on the Biden administration, arguing chemical recycling is at odds with environmental justice.
Waste or manufacturing?
Incineration is regulated under the Clean Air Act, but how those rules apply to facilities using pyrolysis and gasification is a point of contention. Pyrolysis, the main focus for industry members, occurs largely in the absence of oxygen — a key point of distinction from typical incineration.
Under the Trump administration, EPA sought to drop pyrolysis from municipal combustion regulations. The Biden administration is now seeking more information, observing that “recent market trends, especially with respect to plastics recycling,” have spurred requests for clarity.
For industry members, the argument is straight-forward.
“We don’t collect, sort or process the material,” ACC’s Baca said. “We are not in the waste management process, we are buying feedstock.”
Critics maintain that approach allows sites to evade oversight from regulators. “Part of the problem here is, in the absence of federal regulation, the burden has fallen on the state environment agencies,” explained GAIA’s Patel, adding those entities “generally don’t have enough resources to manage all of these things.”
Jim Pew, a senior attorney with the group Earthjustice, said EPA’s notice could help settle whether chemical recycling facilities in fact use incineration. He believes they do.
“The term ‘incinerator’ is defined in the Clean Air Act. This is not a situation where it’s loosey-goosey,” he said.
How many chemical recycling facilities even exist is unclear. In its notice, EPA listed 40 sites, but only eight of those deal with mixed plastics. Closed Loop Partners, an investment firm, published an inventory in 2021 showing around 20 U.S. facilities are beyond pilot or lab phase. Of those sites, most produce a pyrolysis-derived oil product, which Matthew Kastner, an ACC spokesperson, said could be used for either fuel or recycled plastic.
“The existing announcements for new advanced recycling facilities favor plastic-to plastic operations,” Kastner said, adding the projects have the potential for recovering nearly 11 billion pounds of plastic annually.
But the industry has faced setbacks. A 2021 Reuters investigation found at least four chemical recycling projects globally were either indefinitely delayed or dropped entirely over viability concerns. Of 30 projects analyzed, most were agreements between small firms and larger oil or consumer brand companies. All were operating either on a small scale or had closed down, often facing the same issues mechanical recyclers have: The challenge of collecting and sorting material, coupled with contamination.
Judith Enck, an Obama-era EPA regional administrator who runs the group Beyond Plastics, noted the embrace of chemical recycling has come amid growing acknowledgment that mechanical recycling of plastics has largely failed. But Enck pushed instead for reducing single-use plastics.
“There are too many different polymers, too many different colors, too many different additives [to] allow this to move from the lab to real life,” she said. “They will not scale up.”
Nomenclature and justice concerns

Some groups have panned the use of the term chemical recycling, which differs significantly from mechanical recycling. ACC meanwhile prefers “advanced recycling,” an approach Kastner explained by noting the moniker encompasses many processes including depolymerization, methanolysis and others.
Communications involving EPA staff and obtained by E&E News through a public records request show phrasing has been a challenge. Emails and meeting notes sent between 2018 and 2020 reveal members of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s Multi-Material Flexible Recovery Collaborative, including industry and EPA representatives, debated the optics of terms.
In one set of meeting notes, ACC’s Prapti Muhuri cited “a lot of stakeholder outreach” as a reason behind the switch from “chemical” to “advanced.” Some participants still disputed the inclusion of the word “recycling,” particularly when the end product was fuel, while others worried about overall framing.
“The [nongovernmental organizations] will turn ‘chemical’ against the industry,” read comments attributed to a consultant for the plastics recycling industry. “But there is also a media narrative that plastics recycling is ‘failing.’ We don’t want the impression that the need for ‘advanced’ recycling is partially due to that supposed ‘failure.’”
Multiple advocates meanwhile told E&E News they felt the process should simply be called plastics incineration. They said those facilities pose an environmental justice issue, as low-income communities of color disproportionately live near incinerators. Baca countered by citing an ACC-commissioned report that found low air emissions at a few relevant sites. EPA, meanwhile, told E&E News last fall it “does not have adequate data” regarding those emissions.
Direct emissions aren’t the only issue at hand. In December, the Natural Resources Defense Council noted data collected under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act shows some chemical recycling facilities are sending significant amounts of hazardous waste nationwide.
For example, one plant run by the companies Agilyx and AmSty sent more than 500,000 pounds of hazardous waste to various incinerators and disposal sites in 2019, including significant amounts of benzene, a known carcinogen. One destination for the company’s waste is Tradebe Environmental Services’ facility in East Chicago, Ind. EPA toxics release data shows that site has repeatedly been among high emitters, ranking 17th out of 208 Toxics Release Inventory facilities in the hazardous waste industry sector in 2020. EJScreen, another agency tool, indicates the surrounding area near that site is more than two-thirds nonwhite and non-Hispanic, while nearly half are low-income.
Meanwhile, comments submitted last fall in response to EPA’s notice included significant industry and state support, but they also revealed alarm from communities.
“This is our air, our water, our lives,” wrote Denise Lopez, a community organizer from Rhode Island who has opposed a pyrolysis plant in her state over health concerns. “If your governing body doesn’t do more to help protect us, who will?”
Eyes on states, Congress
At the state and local levels, officials haven’t waited on EPA.
ACC said that 15 states have designated chemical recycling as manufacturing rather than incineration, with others on the horizon. The trend is also advancing at the local level; in February, Houston became the first U.S. city to begin a chemical recycling program.
Chemical recycling also has bipartisan attention on Capitol Hill. The technologies have come up repeatedly in hearings devoted to tackling plastics, bolstered by interest from lawmakers like Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) (E&E Daily, June 25, 2021).
But there are also vocal opponents. In the last Congress, the “Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act,” for example, would have placed a three-year moratorium on chemical recycling facilities (E&E Daily, March 25, 2021). Advocates are hopeful that such legislation will pan out.
“It’s not in the hands of the EPA to outright ban, their power is really regulatory,” said Patel. “It would take an act of Congress.”
Either way, officials face tremendous pressure to take action. Veena Singla, an NRDC senior scientist, said she understood the push toward chemical recycling but felt there were too many drawbacks based on what she has seen.
“I feel like the plastic waste crisis is so visible and so horrifying,” she said. “People really want answers and solutions. But our research really demonstrates that this is a false solution.”

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This article is co-published with the Maine Monitor.

How much does household waste fuel the climate crisis? Official numbers suggest a small role, but the full contribution is not yet known — even by regulators and scientists.

As New England states work to curb greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and heating, little attention goes to landfills and municipal solid waste, or “waste-to-energy,” incinerators. Combined, those sources typically represent 5% or less of each state’s total emissions, and they get scarce mention in climate action plans. 

But growing volumes of plastics in the waste stream complicate incinerator emissions accounting. Less than 9% of plastics are recycled, and global plastic production is expected to double by 2040. 

Plastic combustion produces many more byproducts than the three greenhouse gases that most incinerators report annually to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide and methane.

Some chemical compounds in plastics don’t appear to degrade during incineration, while others break down partially and recombine, potentially forming potent and enduring greenhouse gases — compounds that are thousands of times more effective at trapping heat than CO2  and can linger in the atmosphere for millennia. 

Scientists do not yet know the scale of the problem, but a growing body of research suggests that even small amounts of these powerful warming agents could have a significant impact.

Tesco to stop selling baby wipes that contain plastic in first for UK supermarketsRetailer is also Britain’s biggest seller of wet wipes, with customers purchasing 75m packs a year Tesco is to become the first of the main UK retailers to stop selling baby wipes containing plastic, which cause environmental damage as they block sewers and waterways after being flushed by consumers.The supermarket said it was stopping sales of branded baby wipes containing plastic from 14 March, about two years after it ceased using plastic in its own-brand products.The UK’s largest grocer is also the country’s biggest seller of baby wipes. Its customers purchase 75m packs of baby wipes every year, amounting to 4.8bn individual wipes.Tesco said it had been working to reformulate some of the other own-label and branded wipes its sells to remove plastic, including cleaning wipes and moist toilet tissue. It said its only kind of wipe that still contained plastic – designed to be used for pets – would also be plastic-free by the end of the year.Tesco began to remove plastic from its own-brand wet wipes in 2020, when it switched to biodegradable viscose, which it says breaks down far more quickly.Sarah Bradbury, Tesco’s group quality director, said: “We have worked hard to remove plastic from our wipes as we know how long they take to break down.”Tesco is not the first retailer to remove wipes from sale on environmental grounds. Health food chain Holland and Barrett said it was the first high-street retailer to ban the sale of all wet-wipe products from its 800 UK and Ireland stores in September 2019, replacing the entire range with reusable alternatives. The Body Shop beauty chain has also phased out all face wipes from its shops.It is estimated that as many as 11bn wet wipes are used in the UK each year, with the majority containing some form of plastic, many of which are flushed down the toilet, causing growing problems for the environment.Wet wipes ‘forming islands’ across UK after being flushedRead moreLast November, MPs heard how wet wipes are forming islands, causing rivers to change shape as the products pile up on their banks, while marine animals are dying after ingesting microplastics.They are also a significant component of the fatbergs that form in sewers, leading to blockages that require complex interventions to remove.Tesco said any wipes it sold that could not be flushed down the toilet were clearly labelled “do not flush”.Nevertheless, environmental campaigners and MPs have long called on retailers to do more to remove plastics from their products and packaging.The supermarket said it was trying to tackle the impact of plastic waste as part of its “4Rs” packaging strategy, which involves it removes plastic waste where possible, or reducing it, while looking at ways to reuse more and recycle.The chain said it had opened soft plastic collection points in more than 900 stores, and had launched a reusable packaging trial with shopping service Loop, which delivers food, drink and household products to consumers in refillable containers.TopicsTescoPlasticsPollutionRetail industrySupermarketsnewsReuse this content

On Monday, world leaders will gather at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi to negotiate a global treaty to address plastic pollution. Scientists and at least 60 of the member states support a version of the treaty that could put caps on the world plastic production in addition to other policy interventions. A recent survey also found that three-quarters of 20,513 people polled from 28 countries endorse a swift phase-out of single-use plastics. The exponential rate at which global industries extract fossil fuels and produce new plastics and associated chemicals outstrips governments’ ability to regulate their safety, manage waste, and mitigate harm to people and the environment.The total mass of plastics produced exceeds both the overall mass of all land and marine animals and the planetary boundary for these novel substances, moving us out of a safe operating space for humanity. Yet industry continues to project growth, investing billions of dollars in new infrastructure and opposing national and now international efforts to curb both plastic production and pollution.

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Reducing plastic pollution

Pew Charitable TrustsAs reported by Reuters, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a powerful trade organization representing a consortium of plastics and petrochemical interests, is lobbying against production restrictions to be negotiated during the UNEA meetings, which run through March 2. The ACC’s strategy is to undermine proposed production limits on newly produced plastics by convincing politicians and regulators that plastics provide a net benefit to society and can be readily managed through long-failed downstream methods such as waste collection, recycling, and waste-to-energy conversion or yet unproven chemical or so-called ‘advanced recycling technologies’. The industry’s strategy moves against science-backed efforts to curb plastic pollution, including the recent NASEM report, requested by Congress, and the proposed Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which aim to address plastic’s impacts on climate, environment and health. As such, their efforts comport with the well-documented disinformation tactics deployed previously to undermine science-based environmental governance.Plastic pollution is a multifaceted problem requiring curtailment of both production and use, as proposed by Rwanda and Peru. Furthermore, the Rwanda/Peru resolution recognizes the transboundary nature of plastic pollution and the need to address it at its root. By contrast, the Japan resolution narrowly focuses on marine plastics, which, while important, is but one facet of the complex problems plastics pose.

Plastics’ harms

The proliferation of plastic debris is indeed problematic. It collects along the coastlines, clogs sewers, and causes destructive flooding in cities with insufficient waste management like Mumbai and Nairobi. Waterways stagnant with plastic and sewage are a breeding ground for disease vectors that spread cholera and malaria. Plastic waste also has negative repercussions on livelihoods. In Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, and Niger, plastic ingestion by livestock has led to cattle death, impoverishing subsistence communities. In Ghana, where fishing supports most coastal-dwellers, water-borne plastic pollution threatens both jobs and food security.The volume of plastic debris also perpetuates existing social disparities. The export of plastic and waste from high-GDP countries in Europe and North America into the African and Asian nations since 1990has led to massive accumulation and widespread impacts. This ‘waste colonialism’ unfairly exploits environments and people in these regions. The promise of value generation through local recycling proved farcical due to the insufficient infrastructure and markets for recycled products. New plastics are cheaper than products made from recovered resin. Citizens in African nations have pushed back on the Global North’s extractive agenda, resulting in bans and restrictions on certain plastics. Re-introducing plastic under the guise of ‘improving people’s lives’ would undermine their political will, environment, health, and economies.Plastics cause harm throughout their entire lifecycle, shedding microplastic particles into our food, water, air, and soil, releasing greenhouse and toxic gases during production, landfill, and incineration. Toxic additives leach from everyday plastic products such as foodware, textiles, and car tires. Evidence for human exposure to chemicals from plastic and microplastic particles has grown exponentially in recent years. Microplastics have even been detected in human placenta. Continuous exposure to plastic chemicals disrupts development, growth, metabolism, and reproduction for organisms and humans alike. Factory emissions diminish air and water quality, violating the health and human rights of the predominantly low-income communities and communities of color who live along the fenceline. And without reduction mandates, plastics’ CO2 emissions will amount to 6.5 gigatons by 2050 eating 10–13% of the remaining CO2 budget, accelerating global heating. While the Rwanda/Peru resolution reaffirms the importance of addressing plastics toxic and climate implications, such provisions were specifically erased in the Japan resolution.

UN plastics treaty

UN Environmental Program, via TwitterScientific evidence highlights the need for unanimouspolitical support for an ambitious global treaty regulating plastics during their entire lifecycle to account for their impacts to climate, humans, and ecosystems. Such a treaty will need to include caps on production of new plastic to prevent further irreversible global damage. The Rwanda/Peru resolution includes language to address plastics’ impacts from extraction of raw materials to production and end-of-life. It goes beyond dealing with plastic as a waste problem and considers systemic solutions to reduce, replace, reuse, and recycle plastic effectively. Voluntary, optional or market-led solutions will not suffice to solve this complex, global problem. To truly address the impacts of plastics on the environment, society and health, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and call for nations to protect clean and healthy environments as a human right, the resolutions must be binding. Voluntary, optional or market-led solutions will not solve these wicked problems. There is no time for lengthy negotiations aimed at delaying and diluting urgently needed action.

Co-authors

The authors thank five expert colleagues for their help in the preparation of this OP-ed: Dr. Rebecca AltmanDr. Susanne BranderDr. Tridibesh DeyAnja KriegerDr. Tony R. Walker

About the authors

Prof. Bethanie Carney Almroth is an ecotoxicologist at the University of Gothenburg. She researches the effects of chemicals and plastics in marine and freshwater animals, and works to find means for sustainable development, She also coordinates the Gesamp working group on plastics, providing scientific advice to UN organizations. @BCarneyAlmroth, email: bethanie.carney@bioenv.gu.seDr. Melanie Bergmann is a polar marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research who has researched and published on plastic pollution since 2012. She edited the textbook Marine Anthropogenic Litter and runs the online portal Litterbase as well as a pollution observatory in the Arctic. She is part of the AMAP Expert Group on Microplastics and Litter providing scientific advice to the Arctic Council. @MelanieBergma18, email: Melanie.Bergmann@awi.deDr. Scott Coffin is a research scientist at the California State Water Resources Control Board, who has researched plastic pollution since 2014. He leads California’s efforts to monitor and manage microplastics pollution in drinking water and the environment. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any government agency or institution. @DrSCoffin, email: scott.l.coffin@gmail.comDr. Rebecca Altman is a Providence-based writer and independent scholar working on an intimate history of plastics for Scribner Books (US) and Oneworld (UK). Recent work has appeared in The Atlantic, Science, Aeon and Orion. She holds a Ph.D. in environmental sociology from Brown University. Dr. Susanne Brander is a professor and ecotoxicologist at Oregon State University, co-lead of the Pacific Northwest Consortium on Plastics, and recent co-chair of a California Ocean Science Trust advisory team on marine microplastics. Her primary focus is on the effects of stressors such as emerging pollutants, including micro and nanoplastics, on aquatic organisms; and her research and teaching span both ecological and human health impacts. Anja Krieger is a writer and podcaster from Germany working in science communication. She’s reported as a freelance journalist for over a decade in media outlets such as Ensia, Undark, Vox News, PRI The World, Deutschlandradio, and Die Zeit. Anja is the creator of the Plastisphere podcast and co-producer of Life in the Soil. A cultural scientist by training, she’s completed the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Tridibesh Dey is a South Asian anthropologist generating theoretical knowledge about plastics from long-term engaged fieldwork with communities and landscapes most affected by these materials. Having trained originally in the natural sciences with professional experiences in sustainable development, Dr. Dey offers practice-oriented multi-disciplinary perspectives on the complex social entanglements of the material one might call ‘plastic’. Dr. Tony Walker is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University. He has studied impacts of plastic pollution for nearly 30 years and was invited by the Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada to to help develop the Ocean Plastics Charter for Canada’s 2018 G7 presidency. He participated in the Canadian Science Symposium on Plastics to inform Canada’s Plastic Science Agenda, and represented Canada at the G7 Science Meeting on Plastic Pollution in Paris, France in 2019.The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Environmental Health News or The Daily Climate.Banner photo of plastic garbage next to the sea by Antoine Giret/UnsplashFrom Your Site ArticlesRelated Articles Around the Web

Africa faces tough job not to become world’s plastic ‘dustbin’ – Daily Times We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy

Plastic pollution is accumulating worldwide, on land and in the oceans. According to one widely cited estimate, by 2025, 100 million to 250 million metric tons of plastic waste could enter the ocean each year. Another study commissioned by the World Economic Forum projects that without changes to current practices, there may be more plastic by weight than fish in the ocean by 2050.

On Feb. 28, 2022, a meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly will open in Nairobi, Kenya. At that meeting, representatives from 193 countries are expected to consider a resolution that would launch negotiations on a legally binding global treaty to reduce plastic pollution. “[N]o country can adequately address the various aspects of this challenge alone,” the draft resolution states.

I am a legal scholar and have studied questions related to food, animal welfare and environmental law. My forthcoming book, “Our Plastic Problem and How to Solve It,” explores legislation and policies to address this global “wicked problem.”

I believe plastic pollution requires a local, national and global response. While acting together on a world scale will be challenging, lessons from some other environmental treaties suggest features that can improve an agreement’s chances of success.

A pervasive problem

Scientists have discovered plastic in some of the most remote parts of the globe, from polar ice to Texas-sized gyres in the middle of the ocean. Plastic can enter the environment from a myriad of sources, ranging from laundry wastewater to illegal dumping, waste incineration and accidental spills.

Plastic never completely degrades. Instead, it breaks down into tiny particles and fibers that are easily ingested by fish, birds and land animals. Larger plastic pieces can transport invasive species and accumulate in freshwater and coastal environments, altering ecosystem functions.

A 2021 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on ocean plastic pollution concluded that “[w]ithout modifications to current practices … plastics will continue to accumulate in the environment, particularly the ocean, with adverse consequences for ecosystems and society.”

Plastic pollution by the numbers.
University of Georgia, CC BY-ND

National policies are not enough

To address this problem, the U.S. has focused on waste management and recycling rather than regulating plastic producers and businesses that use plastic in their products. Failing to address the sources means that policies have limited impact. That’s especially true since the U.S. generates 37.5 million tons of plastic yearly, but only recycles about 9% of it.

Some countries, such as France and Kenya, have banned single-use plastics. Others, like Germany, have mandated plastic bottle deposit schemes. Canada has classified manufactured plastic items as toxic, which gives its national government broad power to regulate them.

In my view, however, these efforts too will fall short if countries producing and using the most plastic do not adopt policies across its life cycle.

Growing consensus

Plastic pollution crosses boundaries, so countries need to work together to curb it. But existing treaties such as the 1989 Basel Convention, which governs international shipment of hazardous wastes, and the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea offer little leverage, for several reasons.

First, these treaties were not designed specifically to address plastic. Second, the largest plastic polluters – notably, the U.S. – have not joined these agreements. Alternative international approaches such as the Ocean Plastics Charter, which encourages governments and global and regional businesses to design plastic products for reuse and recycling, are voluntary and nonbinding.

Fortunately, many world and business leaders now support a uniform, standardized and coordinated global approach to managing and eliminating plastic waste in the form of a treaty.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, supports an agreement that will accelerate a transition to a more circular economy that promotes waste reduction and reuse by focusing on waste collection, product design and recycling technology. America’s Plastic Makers and the International Council of Chemical Associations have also made public statements supporting a global agreement to establish “a targeted goal to ensure access to proper waste management and eliminate leakage of plastic into the ocean.”

However, these organizations maintain that plastic products can help reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions – for example, by enabling automakers to build lighter cars – and are likely to oppose an agreement that limits plastic production. As I see it, this makes leadership and action by governments critical.

The Biden administration also has stated its support for a treaty and is sending Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Nairobi meeting. On Feb. 11, 2022, the White House released a joint statement with France that expressed support for negotiating “a global agreement to address the full life cycle of plastics and promote a circular economy.”

Early treaty drafts outline two competing approaches. One seeks to reduce plastic throughout its life cycle, from production to disposal, a strategy that would probably include methods such as banning or phasing out single-use plastic products.

A contrasting approach focuses on eliminating plastic waste through innovation and design – for example, by spending more on waste collection, recycling and development of environmentally benign plastics.

Some harmful impacts of plastic waste become more intense as the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments.

Elements of an effective treaty

Countries have come together to solve environmental problems before. The global community has successfully addressed acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion and mercury contamination through international treaties. These agreements, which include the U.S., offer strategies for a plastics treaty.

The Montreal Protocol, for example, required countries to report their production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances so that countries could hold each other accountable. As part of the Convention on Long-range Air Pollution, countries agreed to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, but were allowed to select the method that worked best for them. For the U.S., that involved a system of buying and selling emission allowances that became part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

Based on these precedents, I see plastic as a good candidate for an international treaty. Like ozone, sulfur and mercury, plastic comes from specific, identifiable human activities that occur across the globe. Many countries contribute, so the problem is transboundary in nature.

In addition to providing a framework for keeping plastic out of the ocean, I believe a plastic pollution treaty should include reduction targets for both producing less plastic and generating less waste that are specific, measurable and achievable. The treaty should be binding but flexible, allowing countries to meet these targets as they choose.

In my view, negotiations should consider the interests of those who experience the disproportionate impacts of plastic, as well as those who make a living off recycling waste as part of the informal economy. Finally, an international treaty should promote collaboration and sharing of data, resources and best practices.

Since plastic pollution doesn’t stay in one place, all nations will benefit from finding ways to curb it.

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