Predictably, the fifth and final meeting of the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee in Busan to develop a legally binding global treaty to curb plastic pollution has ended without reaching an agreement. Only a new date has been set for further meetings in 2025, thus postponing an agreement to start working now on reducing this serious pollution problem. And while countries are discussing how to tackle this problem, we continue to produce around 460 million tonnes of plastic per year and, if there is no change of course, it will reach 1.23 billion tonnes by 2060. This means that current pollution problems will continue to increase exponentially.

This is the situation desired by the group of fossil fuel-producing countries that includes plastic producers, who are pushing for the agreement to focus solely on waste management, even though they know that currently only 5% of the total amount of plastic produced is recycled. They also know that the plastic that is not recycled, i.e. the vast majority, ends up in landfills, incinerated or polluting our aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

It is clear that the plastic problem should not be tackled from a single perspective, but that several measures must be combined. Focusing the solution to the problem solely on strengthening recycling without setting a cap on production is not the right strategy. It is clear that a cap on virgin plastic production should certainly be the first measure to be taken. All countries should agree on this and what should be decided at these meetings is what production cap is to be set.

Unfortunately, we will have to keep waiting for the plastic producing countries to accept what the evidence indicates and this does not look like it is going to happen in the near future.

EN