By 2024, a convention will be drawn up that will establish binding rules and measures that affect the entire lifecycle of plastic. The UN’s desire is to significantly reduce plastic pollution by 2040. The Paris meeting (May 29 to June 2) is the second of five intergovernmental rounds of negotiations for a global agreement.
The dimensions are considerable and comparable to the UN Climate Change Conferences (COP): 1,500 to 1,600 delegates are expected. However, in the short term, the UN has reduced the number of observers allowed in the talks from five to one per organization – which threatens to unleash organizational chaos.
According to the study, it is possible to avoid
UN member states, as well as non-governmental organizations, scientists and trade unions participate in the negotiations. After the first round of negotiations in Uruguay, in December, environmentalists made a positive assessment, but also noted that opponents of an agreement were already forming.
According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), global plastic pollution can be reduced by 80% by 2040. All resources are already available for this. The prerequisite for this, however, is far-reaching political and market economy shifts towards a circular economy. According to scientists, the effects of plastic waste have not yet been investigated, which often end up in microscopic size in soil, water and in the organism of humans and animals.
Greenpeace urgent appeal
Before the Paris conference, the environmental organization Greenpeace insisted on an ambitious agreement. Plastic production must be reduced by 75% and finally, the plastic age must end. “Plastic harms human health, accelerates social injustice, destroys biodiversity and fuels the climate crisis,” it said in a statement. More than six million tons of plastic waste accumulate in Germany every year. 400 million tonnes of plastic waste is produced around the world every year.
AP/Aurelien Morissard Greenpeace also calls for avoiding plastic in Paris
Along with more than 150 organizations and scientists, Greenpeace called on UNEP to ensure that the global plastics deal is not undermined by the influence of the petrochemical and fossil industries. Because member states have shown very different ambitions: while oil-producing states such as Saudi Arabia have propagated bogus solutions such as chemical recycling, other countries are committed to limiting plastic production.
Success in the first round of negotiations
Two circumstances give reason for optimism: on the one hand, countries like Rwanda, Ecuador and Peru formed a “Coalition of High Ambition” that already managed in the first round of negotiations to guarantee that not only the elimination and prevention of residues, but also the new production of plastic must be the object of the agreement.
On the other hand, there are also influential voices in the plastics industry, whose annual production is around 400 million tons, who advocate strict and clear regulation. The bottom line is clear: in order to generate high sales in the future, you want to know where you stand.
Progress also in Austria
In Austria, where the annual per capita consumption of plastics is 150 kg, companies such as ALPLA and Greiner (after Borealis AG, the number two and three plastics manufacturers in Austria) have founded the “Packaging with a Future” platform in in which Coca-Cola and Nestlé are also involved – industrial giants whose plastic bottles and packaging end up in the trash and in nature by the millions every day.
In Germany, there will be a mandatory reusable quota in 2024 and a deposit on disposable containers such as PET bottles and cans in 2025 – at least a start to the radical system change needed. For years, OMV has worked on a “ReOil” process at the Schwechat refinery, in which crude oil must be recovered from plastic. However, chemical recycling, which should be used on an industrial scale by 2026, is seen with skepticism by environmental protection agencies due to the high energy consumption, as well as the production of “bioplastics”, which currently do not have great importance in the world. UNEP future scenarios.
Plastic production has doubled in 20 years
Current data show the urgency of measures: world plastic production has doubled in the last 20 years. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), around 460 million tons of plastic were produced in 2019. Two thirds of that amount are thrown away after one or a few uses. Only ten percent is recycled.
Millions of tonnes of plastic end up in the environment and the sea, often in the form of microscopic particles. These microplastics can get into not only the digestive tract, but also the bloodstream of living beings. Plastic production also contributes to climate change. In 2019, it caused 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases and therefore at least 3.4% of climate-damaging gases worldwide.
Start this weekend
Even before the start of negotiations, French President Emmanuel Macron sent a signal and invited environment ministers and NGOs to a high-level dialogue. French Secretary of State for the Environment Berangere Couillard said late on Saturday that the talks were about the production, disposal and recycling of plastic and the dangers of microplastics.
“We must be careful that the issue of recycling does not replace the debate on reducing plastic production,” warned the French minister for ecological transition, Christophe Bechu. “If we increase our recycling rate, but at the same time increase our production, we are delaying the solution of the problem. So, firstly, we reduce, secondly, we increase the recycling rate.”