Plastic Pollution and Economic Costs

• The United Nations Environment Programme’s ambitious efforts to phase out plastic have failed.

• The Global Plastics Treaty, a resolution passed in 2022, aimed to end plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.

• Over the next two years, countries met five times to create a framework agreement.

• Half of the nearly 170 countries gathered at the fifth round of meetings in Busan, led by the European Union and supported by Pacific island-nations, viewed plastic as an environmental hazard.

• They believed that imposing gradual cuts on the source of plastic, virgin polymer, was the only effective route to ending plastic pollution.

• However, many large developing countries and those with economies based on oil and petrochemical refining, baulk at such a proposal.

• They view calls to cut plastic production as trade barriers masquerading as environmentalism.

• India, while siding with countries averse to production cuts, must acknowledge its capacity to recycle plastic is only about a third of the plastic introduced annually.