A coalition of consumer product companies and financial institutions is urging President Joe Biden's administration to endorse stronger measures in the global plastics treaty talks, including extended producer responsibility programs and phaseouts of problematic plastics.
The Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, which includes some of the world's largest corporate buyers of plastics like Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., sent a letter to Biden March 4 asking for national and global rules, rather than having the U.S. taking a state-by-state approach.
"There is unprecedented mobilization of action across the plastics value chain on a number of realistic and achievable globally binding rules to underpin the treaty," the coalition said. "We are calling for the development of a coherent and effective policy framework based on globally binding rules."
The letter called for the Biden administration to support putting a timeline into the treaty to phase out "problematic plastics that hinder progress towards a circular economy, or have a high risk of ending up in nature."
It also called for the treaty to support EPR programs to finance plastic waste collection, as well as financial mechanisms for countries to develop plastic action plans and to establish a scientific body to look at the environmental, social and economic life cycle impacts of plastics.
The business group sent its letter ahead of the next round of the plastics treaty talks, the fourth of five planned negotiating sessions, slated for Canada in April.
The World Wildlife Fund, which said it supported the business coalition letter, urged the Biden administration to pursue stronger national policies.
"To make an impact at the scale of this crisis, we need to tackle the jumble of disparate policies and inadequate recycling systems," said Erin Simon, WWF's vice president and head of plastic waste and business.
"Nationwide EPR policy, which would require companies to take responsibility for their plastic products from cradle to grave, would provide the consistency and incentives needed to jump-start our country toward a new era in tackling plastic pollution."
The coalition letter came a few days after a group of global financial institutions released an open letter to other banks and financiers, asking them to sign on to proposals for the treaty to include a framework to increase the role of private sector finance in plastic pollution mitigation.
The letter was unveiled during a Feb. 28 webinar sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative.
"Our vision of our working group is to contribute to what we call a thriving circular plastics economy in a world without plastic pollution, achieved through massive redirection of financial flows," said Joost van Dun, director of sustainable finance and the circular economy lead at ING Bank.
The coalition working with UNEP-FI manages $10 trillion in assets, he said.