Plastics are a major problem, and one that’s getting worse. A relatively recent invention, their production has continuously expanded, rising from two million tonnes a year in 1950 to 367 million tonnes in 2020. It’s projected to exceed a billion tonnes annually by 2050.

Plastic pollution is at crisis levels worldwide, with an estimated eight to 14 million tonnes entering the oceans each year. Plastics are everywhere: on land, in water and air, in food and in human bloodstreams.

This puts the international community at a crossroads. Negotiations for a United Nations (UN) Plastics Treaty are today’s most ambitious attempt to address a mounting crisis through coordinated international action. But those who profit from plastic production, including petrostates and the petrochemical industry, will do just about anything to preserve their wealth. They’re pushing for a toothless treaty that focuses on plastics disposal rather than production. Civil society continues to urge ambition, determined to avoid the missed opportunity of a weak treaty.

The treaty process

The journey towards a binding international agreement on plastics began with growing scientific evidence of the devastating impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems in the early 2000s. As researchers discovered microplastics in the remotest corners of the planet, from Arctic snow to deep ocean trenches, the need for coordinated global action became increasingly clear. Initial responses were fragmented, with some countries introducing bans on items such as plastic bags or microbeads, and regional agreements addressing marine litter.

The breakthrough came at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya in March 2022, where states agreed to develop a legally binding instrument to tackle plastic pollution by 2024. In the run-up to the meeting, over 700 civil society groups from 113 countries urged them to do so. The historic decision launched the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) process, with a mandate to develop a comprehensive agreement covering the entire lifecycle of plastics, from production to disposal.

The first INC session, held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in November and December 2002, laid the groundwork for the negotiations by establishing working groups and procedures. The second meeting, in Paris, France, in May and June 2023, began substantive discussions on the treaty’s scope and possible measures. At the third session in Nairobi, Kenya, in November 2023, clear faultlines emerged between different approaches to the crisis; the fourth session, in Ottawa, Canada, in April 2024, attempted to bridge these divides and reach consensus on key provisions.

However, irreconcilable differences over the treaty’s fundamentals flared up again at the fifth session in Busan, South Korea, in November and December 2024, making it impossible to reach agreement. What was supposed to be the final round of negotiations ended up being suspended. The INC will reconvene in 2025, at a time and place to be announced.

Irreconcilable differences

The High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution that came together in Busan includes several European, African and Pacific Island states. Cochaired by Norway and Rwanda, it advocates for binding global rules to reduce plastic production. It wants mandatory production caps and reduction targets, restrictions on harmful chemicals in plastics and comprehensive design standards to improve recyclability. Many of the coalition’s member countries are experiencing severe impacts of plastic pollution on their ecosystems and economies.

At the other end of the spectrum are states actively seeking to block progress, including Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia. They’re strongly opposed to production caps or restrictions. They frame plastic pollution primarily as a waste management issue and suggest voluntary initiatives and industry-led responses. In doing so, they side fully with the petrochemical industry, which was extremely well represented in Busan, including as part of several national delegations, such as those from China, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Finland, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Peru.

According to a Center for International Environmental Law study, 220 lobbyists from the fossil fuel and chemical industries registered to attend, the highest ever number for these negotiations. Combined, they would have made the largest single delegation at INC-5. They outnumbered the delegations from the European Union and all its member states combined, those from all the Pacific small island developing states and the delegations from the entire Latin American and Caribbean region.

Petrochemical industry lobbyists argue that plastics are essential for development, global south countries need them and production restrictions would cause job losses and rising prices, harming economic growth. Based on the idea that market-based solutions are always preferable to regulation, they propose industry-led voluntary initiatives and public-private partnerships to invest in waste management infrastructure, develop recycling technologies and educate consumers.

This flies in the face of all available evidence – but is reflected in some states’ negotiating positions. Only around nine per cent of plastics are currently recycled, with the rest mostly dumped in landfills, burned or unaccounted for. Much of the plastic produced can’t be recycled or would be very expensive to recycle, while recycling also has harmful environmental impacts and results in lower quality materials. There’s evidence the industry has known all along that recycling would never work, but pushes it to get around plastic bans.

A third group of states that includes some major plastic producers, such as China and the USA, is somewhere between the positions of the High Ambition Coalition and the petrochemicals lobby. The USA prioritises proposals to improve waste management and recycling infrastructure, supports measures to increase transparency in supply chains and advocates for innovation in alternative materials. China emphasises that global north and global south countries have different responsibilities and calls for capacity strengthening in global south countries, advocating for a gradual transition to reduce plastic pollution as a way of managing economic impacts.

While both states favour national action plans over binding global targets and are aligned with industry interests, civil society sees them as negotiating in good faith and potentially persuadable. That’s where the hope for an ambitious treaty lies. But this would require them to understand that tackling plastic pollution demands stopping plastic production. An effective treaty must include clear production reduction targets and bans on the most toxic plastic materials and many single-use plastics, which are used only once but remain in the environment for hundreds of years.

Civil society in action

The path to a UN Plastics Treaty has been paved by years of civil society engagement through research, advocacy and campaigning. This groundwork created the political conditions for launching treaty negotiations, and civil society continues to highlight the urgency of the crisis and ensure affected communities’ voices are heard.

Civil society is mounting a concerted campaign for an ambitious treaty, maintaining a constant presence in the process and combining scientific research, public awareness campaigns, direct action and strategic policy advocacy to counter industry narratives and influence negotiations. Success has often come when civil society had combined a range of approaches.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) have attended INC meetings as observers, made written submissions, organised side events and participated in technical working groups and expert consultations. Many states have included civil society in their national consultation processes, and civil society has used these opportunities to influence negotiating positions.

Direct advocacy with national delegations has proved an effective channel of influence. CSOs have met with negotiators, provided technical briefings, shared perspectives from frontline communities and proposed specific treaty text. The effectiveness of this approach has depended on building long-term relationships and establishing credibility through consistent, well-researched input.

Civil society has formed coalitions that include a wide range of groups, including environmental organisations, Indigenous peoples’ representatives, academic institutions and youth movements. These coalitions share resources, help coordinate messages and facilitate knowledge sharing between groups working at different levels, from grassroots organisations to international CSOs. Civil society alliances with like-minded states have opened up new avenues of influence in negotiations.

Civil society has produced and used data to support policy proposals and build credibility with negotiators. It has focused on a wide range of issues, from microplastics in human blood and mapping proposed new petrochemical facilities to tracking illegal plastic waste incineration and analysing corporate lobbying in treaty negotiations. Organisations have brought their expertise into technical discussions.

The Environmental Investigation Agency, an international CSO, has exposed the dark side of the global plastic waste trade, revealing the reality of plastic waste trafficking. Through undercover investigations and detailed tracking of waste shipments, they’ve documented how plastic waste from global north countries often ends up in illegal landfills in Southeast Asia and Turkey. This evidence has been instrumental in pushing for binding global rules to prevent dumping and ensure accountability.

The Break Free From Plastic movement’s annual brand audit reports have helped change the narrative around plastic pollution. By mobilising thousands of volunteers around the world to collect and document plastic waste, it’s created an evidence base that directly challenges corporate arguments. Its findings show that a small number of multinational companies are responsible for the majority of plastic pollution and recycling alone cannot solve the plastic crisis.

As well as reporting on the climate impact of plastics, the Center for International Environmental Law has provided legal expertise on the treaty’s mechanisms and tracked industry lobbying and influence in the negotiations.

Working closely with waste picker communities and organisations, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives has documented the impact of plastic pollution on excluded communities, provided technical analysis of waste management approaches, challenged false solutions such as chemical recycling and incineration and advocated for a just transition to reduce plastic production while protecting informal waste workers.

Digital innovation has extended the reach of these campaigns. CSOs have developed apps to track pollution hotspots and interactive maps of waste trade flows, and used virtual reality to help people experience the impact of ocean plastic pollution. Social media campaigns have made complex policy issues accessible to a wider audience; viral images of marine life entangled in plastic have been particularly powerful. Social media engagement campaigns such as the #PlasticFreeChallenge helped demonstrate practical alternatives to everyday plastic items. The #StopShippingPlasticWaste campaign called on people to put pressure on the world’s top shipping companies to stop transporting plastic waste from the world’s wealthy economies to countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania.

With compelling human stories to accompany scientific evidence, civil society has highlighted the real impacts of plastic pollution. Media campaigns have included Plastic is Forever and The Return of the Plastic Monster video. Films such as the 2019 documentary The Story of Plastic have provided deeper context through community screenings.

Civil society is using litigation to try to stop new plastics plants being opened, such as a huge development planned in Belgium. Many civil society groups have also embraced direct action. Extinction Rebellion staged blockades of petrochemical plants in six North Sea countries. Civil society groups around the world had held coordinated beach clean-ups. Greenpeace’s Plastic Monster tours brought plastic waste in the form of massive art installations to the corporate headquarters of major plastic polluters and, as negotiations entered a critical phase in Busan, its activists boarded a tanker set to load toxic plastic chemicals from a refinery complex in South Korea. Some local groups have raised awareness by placing ‘plastic expiry date‘ stickers on products sold in supermarkets, while others have staged plastic packaging return events at supermarket headquarters.

Corporate accountability efforts have taken many creative forms, including the development of public scorecards to rate and compare companies’ plastic reduction commitments and actions and brand-jamming campaigns modifying company logos to highlight their role in plastic pollution. In Australia, the Unwrapped campaign investigated major supermarkets’ use of plastic packaging and advocated for strict laws to limit plastic production and actions to hold corporations accountable. Many other similar actions have been undertaken by local civil society groups around the world.

Building pressure for change

Several critical tensions have emerged in the negotiations, including the divide between ambitious and minimal approaches, the scope of mandatory versus voluntary measures and the tension between solutions focused on the plastics lifecycle or just waste management. A particularly crucial issue is financial support for global south countries to improve waste management systems and transition away from single-use plastics, while also considering the millions of informal waste workers whose livelihoods depend on current systems.

Success will ultimately depend on maintaining political momentum for ambitious action against significant corporate resistance. As plastic production continues to grow and plastic waste continues to accumulate, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The UN Plastics Treaty represents a critical opportunity to address one of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. Whether the international community can rise to this challenge will depend on continued pressure from civil society, political will from governments and a shared understanding that business as usual is no longer an option.

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