In South Korea, nations meet in final round to address global plastic crisis

Negotiators gathered in Busan, South Korea, on Monday in a final push to create a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution.

It’s the fifth time the world’s nations convene to craft a legally binding plastic pollution accord. In addition to the national delegations, representatives from the plastics industry, scientists and environmentalists have come to shape how the world tackles the surging problem.

“We must end plastic pollution before plastic pollution ends us,” Kim Wansup, South Korea’s minister of environment, said during the opening session.

The planet is “ choking on plastic, ” according to the United Nations. It’s polluting lakes, rivers, oceans and people’s bodies.

“Don’t kick the can, or the plastic bottle, down the road,” U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a message aimed at negotiators.

This “is an issue about the intergenerational justice of those generations that will come after us and be living with all this garbage. We can solve this and we must get it done in Busan,” she said in an interview.

The previous four global meetings have revealed sharp differences in goals and interests. This week’s talks go through Saturday.

Led by Norway and Rwanda, 66 countries plus the European Union say they want to address the total amount of plastic on Earth by controlling design, production, consumption and where plastic ends up. The delegation from the hard-hit island nation of Micronesia helped lead an effort to call more attention to “unsustainable” plastic production, called the Bridge to Busan. Island nations are grappling with vast amounts of other countries’ plastic waste washing up on their shores.

“We think it’s the heart of the treaty, to go upstream and to get to the problem at its source,” said Dennis Clare, legal advisor and plastics negotiator for Micronesia. “There’s a tagline, ‘You can’t recycle your way out of this problem.’”

Some plastic-producing and oil and gas countries, including Saudi Arabia, disagree. They vigorously oppose any limits on plastic manufacturing. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of primary polypropylene, a common type of plastic, accounting for an estimated 17% of exports last year, according to the Plastics Industry Association.

China, the United States and Germany led the global plastics trade by exports and imports in 2023, the association said.

The plastics industry has been advocating for a treaty focused on redesigning plastic products, recycling and reuse, sometimes referred to as “circularity.” Chris Jahn, International Council of Chemical Associations secretariat, said negotiators should focus on ending plastic waste in the environment, not plastic production, to get a deal. Many countries won’t join a treaty if it includes production caps, he said.

To continue to progress and grow as a global economy, there are going to be more plastics, Jahn added.

“So we should strive then to keep those plastics in the economy and out of the environment,” Jahn said.

The United States delegation at first said countries should develop their own plans to act, a position viewed as favoring industry. It changed its position this summer, saying the U.S. is open to considering global targets for reductions in plastic production.

Environmental groups accused the U.S. of backtracking as negotiations approached.

Center for Coalfield Justice executive director Sarah Martik said the United States is standing on the sidelines rather than leading, putting “their thumb on the scale throughout the entirety of the negotiations.” She hopes this does not derail other countries’ ambition.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a national strategy to prevent plastic pollution Thursday, but Martik said she thinks too many of the measures are voluntary to make a difference.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, said it’s a mistake for the United States to settle for the lowest common denominator proposals, just to get some kind of agreement.

Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the committee chair from Ecuador, recently proposed text for sections where he thinks the delegations could agree.