Nations set to hammer out historic UN treaty to tackle plastic crisis

NAIROBI • More than 100 nations convening in Nairobi this week are expected to take the first steps towards establishing a historic global treaty to tackle the plastic crisis afflicting the planet.

Plastic has been found in Arctic sea ice, the bellies of whales and earth's atmosphere, and governments have been under increasing pressure to unite in action against the global scourge.

Negotiators are hammering out the framework for a legally binding plastic treaty that diplomats say is the most ambitious environmental pact since the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

"This is a big moment. This is one for the history books," Ms Inger Andersen, head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told Agence France-Presse last week.

The exact scope of the treaty remains to be defined. There are competing proposals being drafted ahead of a three-day UN environment summit starting today in Nairobi. World leaders and environment ministers meeting in person and virtually are expected to kick-start the treaty process by appointing a negotiating committee to finalise the policy details over the next two years. But more than 50 countries, along with scientists, businesses and environment groups, have publicly called for tough new regulations on industry to curb the torrent of plastic entering the environment.

This could include caps on the production of new plastic - which is made from oil and gas, and forecast to double by 2040 - redesigning products to make recycling easier or less harmful, and phasing out single-use items.

Many countries, including major plastic producers like the United States and China, have expressed general support for a treaty, but stopped short of endorsing any specific measures.

But there is broad consensus that countries acting alone cannot fix the problem and a coordinated global response is needed.

Approximately 300 million tonnes of plastic waste - equivalent to the weight of the human population - is produced every year. Less than 10 per cent is recycled, with most ending up in landfills or the oceans.

By some estimates, a garbage truck's worth of plastic is dumped in the sea every minute, choking marine life and befouling coastlines around the globe. Microscopic particles of plastic can also enter the food chain, eventually joining the human diet.

"It is not something that stops at the border. As we know from plastics in the ocean... your trash becomes my trash, and my trash becomes your trash," said Ms Andersen.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE