As the final Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC5) meeting gets ready to kick off in Busan, South Korea, on Monday, November 25th, efforts to form an internationally binding agreement to eliminate plastic pollution by 2040 have reached a critical juncture.
Plastics Europe and its members recognise that any plastic waste in the environment is unacceptable, said Virginia Janssens, managing director of Plastics Europe. “We appreciate the challenging nature of the negotiations but believe that if negotiators stay focussed on identifying common solutions, an agreement can be reached. We must seize this historic opportunity.”
She went on to say that transitioning to a circular plastics system, in which all plastics applications are reused, recycled, and responsibly managed, is the key to tackling the problem of plastic waste and a successful agreement. “The most effective way to accelerate this transition while supporting our sustainable development and climate change goals is to ensure the agreement makes plastic waste a commodity with real value.”
Securing the necessary funding is a key challenge, particularly for emerging economies. Hence, the agreement should feature sustainable financing mechanisms, like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, to unlock the significant public and private investments that are needed.
Adopting an application-based approach to plastics can help identify and eliminate problematic applications without causing extra environmental harm or socio-economic disadvantages.
“Countries face different challenges and require different solutions. A one-size-fits-all global approach will not work. Therefore, the agreement should strike the right balance between global obligations and national measures," said Janssens.
She added that from a European perspective, the agreement must support, rather than undermine, the European plastics industry’s transition to circularity and competitiveness. The final agreement should mandate countries to create national action plans with recycling and recycled content targets, establish a robust system for monitoring plastic pollution, and ensure stakeholder accountability.
"If we want plastics that are more easily reused, recycled, repaired and durable, then we need to start by designing them that way. The agreement should therefore draw on existing and emerging international design principles and standards to improve the circularity of plastic products," she concluded.