The world’s plastic waste problem has reached a crescendo. The estimates are stark: over the next 20 years production is expected to double, creating the risk that, if nothing is done, the roughly 14 million tonnes leaking into the ocean each year will grow twofold.
These stark statistics were surely at the forefront of the minds of the 173 country reps as they came together to pledge to develop a historic and legally binding global treaty addressing the full lifecycle of plastics. The resolution, agreed at the UN environment assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, in February, will see a plan hashed out over two years to end plastic pollution, including provisions for financial and technical support.
“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of this treaty,” says Yoni Shiran, partner at SYSTEMIQ, a ‘think-and-do’ tank, and co-author of a new report, ‘ReShaping Plastics’, on how to achieve a climate-neutral plastic system. “If it’s even half decent, it can be...