International Negotiations Begin Towards A Treaty on Plastics Regulation

International Negotiations Begin Towards A Treaty on Plastics Regulation

Scientists, environmentalists, and government representatives are gathering in Uruguay this week to start negotiations on what will hopefully become a meaningful United Nations treaty limiting the production of plastics. Of course industry lobbyists will be in attendance too, doing all they can to keep business as usual flowing in the plastics industry. But the problem with business as usual is that it is killing us and the planet. Production of both macroplastics – think shopping bags and bottles, and microplastics – found in synthetic clothing and from the breakdown of plastic products – has proven nothing short of a global catastrophe that impacts every corner of the globe and every living thing on it. And it’s only getting worse.

Annual global production of plastics is currently at a rate of about a trillion pounds of plastic a year of all the plastic ever produced has been recycled. Plastics are in our air, our water, our food, and most definitely in our bodies. Humans inhale hundreds of thousands of these particles a year and eat and drink still more. Even babies’ first stools contain plastics, which means kids are being exposed to plastics before they’re even born. And if you think these exposures are harmless, think again. One recent study very conservatively linked the phthalate chemicals in plastics to 100,000 early deaths a year in the US. And that is just one of hundreds of types of different chemicals that make up plastic.  Many, many other chemical constituents in plastic remain unstudied, undisclosed, and unknown in terms of their impact on human health, but we can bet that impact is not good.

Who knows what will ultimately make it into this treaty, but the emphasis must be on massively cutting, and eventually ending, plastics production altogether for it to have any hope of making a difference. To date, over a century since it was first invented, plastic has proven to be a toxic substance that is incapable of being contained or economically recycled. Nevertheless, these discussions represent an important first step that will hopefully result in laws with real teeth that will finally start to offer us, our loved ones, and every other living thing on this planet some much needed protection.