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Go ahead for plastic waste treaty - 11th April 2022

United Nations member states have given consent to the drafting of a global treaty with the aim of combatting plastic pollution. These nations are to initiate negotiations for an international agreement to act on the 'plastic crisis'. The UN members have been tasked with developing an overarching framework for limiting plastic waste.

Increasing awareness of the inherent dangers of discarded plastic on ecosystems and their dependent fauna and flora, as well as greater understanding of the risks to the food chain, is behind this new impetus. Regarded by many as comparable in ambition and weight to the 1989 Montreal Protocol, which boldly phased out ozone-depleting compounds, the potential for change has attracted a warm response from environmentalists.

Annually, 400 million tonnes of plastic are churned out across the world, with 40 percent of that being single use. It's estimated that over five trillion pieces of plastic, requiring decades to decompose, are contaminating the Earth's oceans. Marine and land animals are often accidentally ensnared by dumped plastic packaging, which they also mistakenly consume.

Addressing the full lifecycle of plastic products – production and use, as well as disposal – is key to turning off "the plastic tap", clarified senior policy advisor Paula Chin. She observed, "The next step is to make sure all signatories are ready to deliver on the promise of this ground-breaking agreement."

Agreement by world leaders on the precise nature of the treaty is to be reached by 2024 and it will cover necessary elements such as how to fund implementation, as well as statutory action on law-breaking. Incentivising countries to abide by the rules and regulations, while penalising detrimental plastic products and practices, are key considerations for environmental bodies, who are currently clamouring for transparency and robustness in the global standards to be outlined in the treaty.

Specialist advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme, Professor Steve Fletcher of Portsmouth University, commented that "One country can't deal with plastic pollution alone, no matter how good its policies are. We need a global agreement to enable us to deal with the widespread challenges that plastic gives us as a society."