CIVICUS discusses the campaign for a United Nations (UN) treaty to tackle plastic pollution with Aminah Taariq-Sidibe, manager of End Plastic Initiatives at EARTHDAY.ORG, an international environmental civil society group. Alongside over 150,000 partners in over 192 countries, EARTHDAY.ORG works to mobilise environmental action worldwide.

The plastic pollution crisis demands urgent global action, particularly on curbing plastics production. With only a small fraction of all plastics recycled, better waste management alone cannot solve this global problem. However, negotiations for a comprehensive treaty face significant obstacles, including opposition from major plastic-producing states and influence from fossil fuel lobbyists, who often outnumber civil society representatives at talks.

Why’s there a need for an ambitious treaty on plastic pollution?

We need a treaty on plastic pollution because of the scale, complexity and transboundary nature of the problem of plastic pollution. Plastic pollution does not respect borders: waste generated in one country can wash up thousands of miles away, and mismanaged shipments of plastic waste routinely end up in communities that lack the infrastructure to manage them. This is way more than any single country can address.

The entire plastics lifecycle is harmful to the environment, from the extraction of fossil fuels and the production of the petrochemicals that go into plastic manufacture, to the use phase where plastic products shed microplastics, to its turning into waste that will never fully break down. But it all starts with production, and particularly the excessive production of single-use plastics. Global plastic production has doubled since 2000, reaching 460 million metric tonnes in 2019, and it’s projected to triple by 2050.

Plastics are hazardous to the environment and human health. Microplastics have been detected in human blood, brains, lungs and semen, and in placentas, meaning babies are exposed to them before they are born. These particles can cause inflammation, stress our cells and carry toxic chemicals into sensitive organs. Chemicals contained in plastics such as bisphenol A and phthalates have been linked to cancers, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, endocrine disruption, metabolic disorders, neurotoxicity and reproductive issues.

The plastic industry often promotes recycling as a solution to this crisis. But only nine per cent of all the plastics we’ve ever produced have been recycled, while the rest are incinerated, landfilled or floating in our environment after use. Recycling is clearly not the solution.

An ambitious global treaty would establish common rules covering the entire plastics lifecycle and create accountability across countries and industries. It would limit virgin plastic production, phase out hazardous chemicals, set rules for safer product design, expand reuse and refill systems, hold producers financially responsible for their waste and ensure a just transition for vulnerable communities.

What are the main obstacles preventing agreement?

There is a fundamental divide between states that want to place binding controls on production and those that want to focus only on waste management and recycling. Over a hundred states, including members of the High Ambition Coalition, have called for production caps or phasedowns, but major plastic-producing states prefer to keep production unregulated and shift the burden downstream.

There’s also disagreement over how strictly chemicals and additives in plastics should be regulated, and whether manufacturers should be required to disclose the thousands of substances used in plastic production.

Additionally, the negotiation process has been delayed by procedural issues. Working sessions of contact groups, where negotiators examine the treaty text line-by-line, take considerable time. The treaty also relies on consensus decision-making, which means a small group of holdout states can block progress.

Lobbying is another an issue because the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee doesn’t have conflict-of-interest policies. This gives the industry scope to play a powerful role in shaping the treaty. The latest session saw more industry representatives than from all 27 European Union states, small island and developing states, scientists and frontline communities combined. Some member state representatives came from the fossil fuel industry.

The industry’s influence also comes from its abundant financial resources and decades-old biased narratives. It lobbies heavily for false solutions such as recycling and technological fixes while resisting real solutions like limits on production.

How has the US government’s position affected negotiations?

Every state has the power to influence the treaty because of the consensus procedure. But the USA’s cooperation is particularly important because it is a global leader and one of the largest producers of plastics and plastic waste.

The US position is a threat to an effective treaty because it has consistently opposed binding limits on plastic production and has instead promoted a treaty built around national action plans, waste management and product design such as recycled content. This position, which has deepened under the Trump administration, emboldens other major producers to resist upstream control.

How much space does civil society have to contribute to the negotiations?

Civil society has the potential to contribute, but its space is constrained. Civil society organisations, Indigenous leaders, waste picker groups and scientists can register as observers of negotiations and have opportunities to make interventions in plenary sessions. They can organise side events and press conferences, publish reports and engage directly with delegations. However, access to contact groups, where the most detailed negotiations occur, is limited. Contact groups often run out of time and roll over into informal meetings that are closed off to observers. There have been ad hoc sessions outside of the formal negotiations, including one that took place in Bangkok, Thailand in August 2024.

Civil society has a critical role to play in keeping ambition on the table and providing technical expertise. But the structural limits of the process and the influence of the industry, which can sometimes include pressure and intimidation, often blunt its impact.

What’s the current state of negotiations?

Contrary to the prevailing narrative that the negotiations have failed, we would say that if anything, negotiations have so far been successful at preventing a weak treaty being passed. And the process isn’t over yet.

If states are unable to reach consensus through the UN process, there are several alternatives. The first is extending the mandate of the current negotiations, but with reforms such as voting rules to allow a strong majority to adopt a treaty text even if a few states object. This is in line with other multilateral environmental agreements.

Another possibility is using existing agreements such as the Basel Convention, which regulates the international waste trade, to regulate the trade of plastic waste and hazardous additives. However, this pathway would not deliver the comprehensive lifecycle controls or global production limits needed.

A third pathway is for a coalition of ambitious states to move ahead with a separate treaty outside the UN process, creating a ‘plurilateral’ agreement. This would be both faster and potentially more ambitious, but would lack universal coverage. Nevertheless, a coalition could create incentives such as trade measures to encourage others to join over time.

Time will tell how negotiations unfold, but one thing is for sure: a majority of states and civil society will keep striving for a progressive global plastics treaty.