Plastic recycling in focus as treaty talks get underway in Paris (updated)

Global Partners LP

29/05/2023 10:24

(Adds Macron comment in 5th paragraph)
    By Valerie Volcovici
       May 29 (Reuters) - As talks start this week on a global
plastics treaty, debate is emerging between countries wanting to
limit the production of more plastics and the petrochemical
industry favoring recycling as the solution to plastic waste.
    Ahead of a meeting starting on Monday, many countries have
said a goal of the treaty should be "circularity" – or keeping
already-produced plastic items in circulation as long as
possible.
    Coming into the talks in Paris, a 55-nation coalition called
for a strong treaty including restrictions on certain hazardous
chemicals as well as bans on problematic plastics products that
are hard to recycle and often end up in nature.
    "We have a responsibility to protect human health in our
environment from the most harmful polymers and chemicals of
concern through the treaty," said Rwanda's environment minister,
Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya, who is the co-chair of the High
Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.
    French President Emmanuel Macron said "there is no time to
lose" on the issue.
    "The aim must be to produce a text that everyone agrees on
by the end of 2024, a year before the United Nations Conference
on Oceans in Nice," he said in a video message released on
Monday. 
    The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), which is hosting the
talks, released a blueprint for reducing plastic waste by 80% by
2040. The report, issued earlier this month, outlined three key
areas of action: reuse, recycling and reorientation of plastic
packaging to alternative materials.
    Some environmental groups criticized the report for focusing
on waste management, which they saw as a concession to the
global plastics and petrochemicals industry.
    "Real solutions to the plastics crisis will require global
controls on chemicals in plastics and significant reductions in
plastic production," said Therese Karlsson, science advisor with
the International Pollutants Elimination Network.
    Under a new group, called Global Partners for Plastics
Circularity, the industry has put mechanical and chemical
recycling at the center of its position.
    UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen told Reuters that the
criticism of recycling being in the report ignored the report's
broader recommendations for overhauling packaging.
    "We're talking about redesign, and when we're talking
redesign, it's everything that we need to do so that we use less
plastic," she said. "That's where it begins."
    
    PUBLIC HEALTH WORRY
    During the first round of talks last November in Uruguay,
countries set an ambitious deadline of having a legally binding
treaty agreed within a year.
    As yet, delegates were still deciding on the treaty's core
objectives – including whether some plastics should be banned
and ways to improve waste management.
    Countries also have yet to resolve key issues including
methods for financing policies as well as how policies would be
implemented and reported on.
    This week, dozens of countries were listing public health as
one of their priority concerns in limiting plastics production
and waste. The UNEP report also identified 13,000 chemicals
associated with plastic production, more than 3,000 of which
were considered hazardous.
    Greenpeace, meanwhile, issued a report collecting findings
from scientific research papers that suggest plastic recycling
processes can release many of these chemicals including benzene
into the environment.
    While the United States is not a coalition member, a State
Department official told Reuters that it shares the group's
ambition but favors an approach in which countries develop their
own national action plans, similar to the Paris climate
agreement.
    The U.S. plans with UNEP this week to announce a grant to
help developing countries take immediate action on plastic
pollution.

 (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Additional reporting by
Elizabeth Pineau in Paris; Editing by Katy Daigle, Diane Craft
and Mike Harrison)
 ((valerie.volcovici@thomsonreuters.com;))