Bethanie Carney Almroth, a professor of biological and environmental sciences at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, said that addressing plastics as materials rather than products will allow for increased innovation in product design to cut the amount and types of chemicals used.
“Chemicals used in plastics number around 10,000, which include polymers, smaller oligomers, unreacted monomers, additive chemicals and non-intentionally added chemicals,” Almroth said.
The first meeting of a United Nations intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop a new global agreement to combat plastic pollution is being held in Uruguay this week. The aim is for countries to reach an agreement by the end of 2024, with adoption in 2025.
Nine billion tonnes of non-recycled plastics were produced between 1950 and 2017. Nearly 80% of that has been buried in landfill or released into the environment, impacting human health and ecosystems.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Nov 28 tweeted about the need for meaningful and inclusive participation in the plastics treaty that puts people before corporate profits.
Transparency regarding the use of chemicals will allow for more informed decisions to regulate their use in different products, and allow for the safe reuse and recycling of plastics, experts say.
Olga Speranskaya, co-director at Health and Environment Justice Support, a European advocacy group, said there is a significant gap in collecting data on the presence of these chemicals in plastics.
“The new plastic[s] treaty has the potential to become the first international agreement that includes legally binding requirements on providing access to information on chemicals present in plastics throughout the entire plastic life cycle,” she said.
Speranskaya added that developed countries should provide information to developing countries about toxic chemicals in the plastic waste they produce and trade. In 2018, China banned the import of most plastic waste, but other Asian countries continue to import waste that contains toxic chemicals, making waste management a health hazard.
Chelsea Rochman, an assistant professor with the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto, said the legally binding components of the treaty should help build a circular economy, cap virgin production or subsidise post-consumer recycled content to create more successful recycling.
At present, just 8% of plastic waste is recycled, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
It is estimated by the OECD that by 2060, plastic waste could triple from 2019 levels, with the largest increases in Africa and Asia, and a concurrent doubling of greenhouse gas emissions.
“I envision some parts [to be] like the Paris Agreement, where we set targets for the reduction of emissions of plastic pollution and ‘inventorise’ plastic emissions similar to greenhouse gases,” said Rochman. “There are many sources to plastic pollution and a global treaty should consider all of them.”
Non-governmental organisations have also called for a legally binding treaty to track the full life cycle of plastics, from production to their release into the environment, with actions taken across the global supply chain to limit pollution.
Julia Cohen, co-founder and managing director of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a US-based advocacy group, said that while many governments have enacted legislation that largely focuses on reduction, such as bans on single-use products or packaging, there is no comprehensive legislation that addresses the harmful impacts that plastics have across their life cycle, nor the widespread injustices that pollution causes.
“Communities on the fence line of petrochemical and plastics infrastructure face chemical pollution of air, land and water, in addition to pollution [from] dangerous plastic particles, noise, and risk of deadly industrial accidents like fires and explosions,” Cohen said.