The story so far: Around 180 countries have failed to find consensus on an internationally binding legal agreement that sought to restrict plastic pollution. Talks in Geneva remained deadlocked on the issue late this week. While there is already a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-backed resolution on the need for such a move, only a binding agreement will actually force countries to take concrete action. However, countries are divided on several questions: should they address plastic waste alone or include plastic production?; should developing countries be funded by developed countries for the purpose? The key point of contention is the role of plastics in health.

What are the challenges from plastic?

No material symbolises the global, industrialised, consumption-based economy like plastic. The chemical constituents of plastics are polymers, and they can be natural — like cellulose, lignin, and are the basis of nearly everything in nature — or made in labs. Polymers derived from fossil fuel and then shaped into objects are in general called ‘plastic.’ As a derivative of crude oil, it has the ability to be moulded into a nearly infinite variety of objects, from critical things, including aircraft and medical equipment, to cosmetic items such as tinsel, baubles and packaging. Add to that its low cost of production relative to materials such as glass and aluminium. The ubiquity of plastics and the fact that it is cheap has led to it being the prime source of litter and a symbol of the collapse of waste management systems.

However, plastic’s flexibility also implies its persistence. Plastics are mixtures of various types that include monomers, polymers, and chemical additives. There are more than 16,000 chemicals potentially used or present in plastic materials and products. There is little or no information about the potential impact on human health or the environment by over 10,000 of these chemicals. A report last year in the journal Nature concluded that more than 4,000 chemicals of concern can be present in each major plastic type, such as PVC, polyurethanes, PET, polyethylene and others. Given that most of these are synthetic and non-biodegradable, public opinion has generally focussed on recycling or waste management. Over the years, however, there has been a body of scientific investigation into how these chemicals — that are indestructible — may make their way into living organisms in rivers, oceans, land and ultimately inside people.

What is evidence that plastic harms health?

Ethylene, propylene, styrene and their derivatives are commonly used to make plastic. Ethylene derivatives such as polypropene (PP), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) comprise the largest portion of downstream petrochemicals used to make plastic packaging. However, manufacturing them requires a range of other chemicals, several of which are monomers (the building blocks of polymers). These include bisphenols, phthalates, polychlorinated-biphenyls (PCB), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). They are used to produce food containers, drink bottles, teething toys, polyester, intravenous bags, cosmetics, paints, electronic components, adhesives and sealants.

For years, there have been a bulk of studies where medical researchers have investigated if exposure to these chemicals, via the products used, is having a discernible impact on health. Earlier this month, Boston College in the U.S. and Australia’s Minderoo Foundation launched a dashboard that compiled such evidence. There are around 1,100 primary studies involving about 1.1 million individuals that have linked changes in thyroid function, hypertension, kidney and testicular cancer, and gestational diabetes to exposure to these chemicals. The vast proportion of these individuals studied are in the developed world. Nearly, all of these studies are “associative”, in the sense that the measured disease outcome could be a result of exposure to the chemicals as well as a range of other factors, and it is not always possible to tease apart individual effects.

The true “gold standard” of exposure is a “longitudinal study”, where a fixed group of people are tracked over a long time to discern the effects of chemical exposure, but this is time consuming. There are studies underway, said Dr. Sarah Paul, neuroscientist and head of Plastics and Human Health, Minderoo, to evaluate if a group of people who were consciously less exposed to certain plastics would have improved health outcomes.

What about microplastics?

Microplastics are plastics smaller than five millimetres and can refer to the constituent elements of a variety of additives or plastic products. Given that technology available to detect them is relatively recent, they have over the years been found in blood, breast milk, placenta and bone marrow. While their exact impact on human health is unclear, they too are implicated in a wide range of disorders.

What is India doing about plastic?

There is a ban on the production and use of single-use plastics in nearly 20 States. These are the category of plastic goods that are the least re-usable and difficult to recycle. Given that they constitute a waste management problem, India has a range of administrative process meant to push companies towards ensuring that a proportion of plastic that is used are collected back. However, this has had limited effect. India doesn’t yet recognise the impact of plastics and chemicals on health.

In international negotiations on the global plastics treaty, India and other countries have expressed reservations on including discussions on health in the plastic treaty and said that these are matters to be taken up at the World Health Organization. Thus, plastics is primarily a waste management problem, as far as India is concerned.

Published – August 17, 2025 02:49 am IST

Ghanas lead negotiator Sam Adu-Kumi speaks as Alejandra Parra, zero waste and plastics advisor for GAIA Latin America and the Caribbean, listens at a press conference during the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution (INC-5) in Busan on December 1, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far:The 5th Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) on plastic pollution was a conclave of delegations from about 170 countries mandated to establish a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, informally called the Global Plastics Treaty. Despite a week of meetings, the INC-5 failed to meet its mandate.

What is the Global Plastics Treaty?

The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolved in March 2022 to ‘end plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.’ To that end, INC committees were constituted and tasked with negotiating a treaty before the end of 2024. Over the last two years, countries met five times, and attempted to bridge divergent views on how to end plastic pollution. Several countries are enthusiastic about ways and means to encourage recycling and prohibit certain plastics that lead to littering — India for instance has banned single-use plastic since 2022 — but many of them are reluctant to limit plastic production. Several countries are either petro-states or those that have significant industries that manufacture plastic polymers. Before the latest, and what was expected to be the last round of negotiations, began in Busan, South Korea, the Chair of the INC-5, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, circulated a draft text called a ‘non paper.’ This was roughly a synthesis of the views of all countries on managing plastic production but in the end, it turned out that despite long negotiations, the chasm between countries who viewed addressing plastic pollution as a waste management problem, and those that saw it as unachievable without cutting its production at source, was one that was too wide to bridge.

How bad is the problem of plastic pollution?

According to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) factsheet, plastic waste generation nearly trebled from between 1970 and 1990. In the early 2000s, the amount of plastic waste generated rose more in a single decade than it had in the previous 40 years. Currently, the world produces about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. If historic growth trends continue, global production of primary plastic is forecasted to reach 1,100 million tonnes by 2050. There has also been a worrying shift towards single-use plastic products, items that are meant to be thrown away after a short use.

Approximately, 36% of all plastics produced are used in packaging, including single-use plastic products for food and beverage containers, of which 85% ends up in landfills or as unregulated waste. On top of that, about 98% of single-use plastic products are produced from fossil fuel, or “virgin” feedstock. The level of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production, use and disposal of conventional fossil fuel-based plastics is forecast to grow to 19% of the global carbon budget by 2040. Of the seven billion tonnes of plastic waste generated globally so far, less than 10% has been recycled. Millions of tonnes of plastic waste are lost to the environment, or sometimes shipped thousands of kilometres to destinations where it is mostly burned or dumped. The estimated annual loss in the value of plastic packaging waste during sorting and processing alone is $80-$120 billion. Cigarette butts — whose filters contain tiny plastic fibres — are the most common type of plastic waste found in the environment. Food wrappers, plastic bottles, plastic bottle caps, plastic grocery bags, plastic straws, and stirrers are the next most common item.

What is India’s position on the treaty?

India said that it would be “unable” to support any measures to regulate the production of primary plastic polymers as it has larger implications in respect of the right to development of member States. Indian delegation leader, Naresh Pal Gangwar, of the Environment Ministry, said at the concluding plenary session India had always been “committed” to the principle of consensus in decision-making in respect of substantive matters under multilateral environmental agreements. This principle reiterated collective decision-making and reflects shared responsibilities and commitment. Elaborating on these points, India’s position was that it had banned 22 kinds of single-use plastic and put in place an Extended Producer Responsibility regime. This means that companies had to ensure a certain percentage of their plastic-packaging waste was recycled and that the littering of some of the most common kinds of plastic waste was banned. However, virgin polymer production is one of India’s major products and exports, with conglomerates such as Reliance having significant stakes in the industry. India viewed calls to cut plastic production and regulate its supply as akin to introducing barriers to trade. Its position was closer to that of China, Saudi Arabia and several other oil and petrochemical-refining states. At the talks, 85-100 of the gathered countries were supportive of cuts to plastic production, year-wise targets to achieve them and restrict supply and trade. Finally, India has strongly opposed proposals for countries to vote on propositions in draft texts that were produced at negotiations such as INC. In INC-like negotiations — like the Conference of Parties talks in climate — every single word and punctuation has to be agreed upon by all countries. This inevitably leads to deadlock that can take years to resolve. There have been proposals to include voting rights to engineer progress but countries have opposed this, on the ground that it violates the principle of equity.

Is this the end of the road?

By no means. It is expected that an “INC 5.2” will likely be convened sometime later next year to resume conversation and find common ground to firm a treaty. The final treaty, if agreed to, will lead to the beginning of a periodic Conference of Parties (COP) — just like in the climate talks. The UN talks in Rio de Janerio, in 1992, was where countries decided to address carbon dioxide emissions. It took three years until the first COP was organised in Berlin and in the 29 years since, the world has moved at a glacial pace to address CO2 emissions.

According to an analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law, multilateral environmental agreements have taken varying amounts of time to negotiate treaty text due to a range of factors, ranging from just over a year to nearly five years between the start of negotiations and treaty adoption. In addition, depending on the number of countries required to ratify, it is not unusual for several years to pass between adopting the treaty and its entry into force. For example, the Intergovernmental Conference on an international legally-binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction held five sessions over five years. It met seven times by holding a “resumed” fifth session and a “further resumed” fifth session.

A sign sits amongst plastic on a public art installation outside a United Nations conference on plastics on April 23, 2024, in Ottawa, Ontario.
| Photo Credit: AP

Nations made progress on a treaty to end plastic pollution as their fourth round of talks finished early on April 30 in Canada.

For the first time in the process, negotiators discussed the text of what is supposed to become a global treaty. Delegates and observers at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution called it a welcome sign that talk shifted from ideas to treaty language at this fourth of five scheduled meetings.

Most contentious is the idea of limiting how much plastic is manufactured. That remains in the text over the strong objections of plastic-producing countries and companies and oil and gas exporters. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels and chemicals.

As the Ottawa session ended, the committee agreed to keep working on the treaty before its final meeting later this year in South Korea.

The preparations for that session will focus on how to finance the implementation of the treaty, assess the chemicals of concern in plastic products and look at product design. Rwanda’s representative said they ignored the elephant in the room by not addressing plastic production.

Stewart Harris, an industry spokesperson with the International Council of Chemical Associations, said the members want a treaty that focuses on recycling plastic and reuse, sometimes referred to as “circularity”.

They don’t want a cap on plastic production, and think chemicals should not be regulated through this agreement. Mr. Harris said the association is pleased to see governments coming together and agreeing to complete additional work, especially on financing and plastic product design.

Dozens of scientists from the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty came to the meeting to provide scientific evidence on plastic pollution to negotiators, in part, they said, to dispel misinformation.

“I heard yesterday that there’s no data on microplastics, which is verifiably false: 21,000 publications on micro and nanoplastics have been published,” said Bethanie Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicology professor at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg who co-leads the coalition. “It’s like Whac-A-Mole.” She said scientists were being harassed and intimidated by lobbyists and she reported to the UN that a lobbyist yelled in her face at a meeting.

Despite their differences, the countries represented share a common vision to move forward in the treaty process, Ecuador’s chief negotiator, Walter Schuldt, said.

“Because at the end of the day, we’re talking about the survival of the future of life, not only of human life but all sorts of life on this planet,” he said in an interview.

He said he was proud to participate, to contribute his “grain of sand” to global action to address an environmental crisis.

The treaty talks began in Uruguay in December 2022 after Rwanda and Peru proposed the resolution that launched the process in March 2022. Progress was slow during Paris talks in May 2023 and in Nairobi in November as countries debated rules for the process.

When thousands of negotiators and observers arrived in Ottawa, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the committee chair from Ecuador, reminded them of their purpose to deliver a future free of plastic pollution. He asked them to be ambitious.

The delegates have been discussing not only the scope of the treaty, but chemicals of concern, problematic and avoidable plastics, product design, and financing and implementation.

Delegates also streamlined the unwieldy collection of options that emerged from the last meeting.

“We took a major step forward after two years of lots of discussion. Now we have text to negotiate,” said Björn Beeler, international coordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network. “Unfortunately, much more political will is needed to address the out of control escalating plastic production.” Many travelled to Ottawa from communities affected by plastic manufacturing and pollution. Louisiana and Texas residents who live near petrochemical plants and refineries handed out postcards aimed at the U.S. State Department saying, “Wish you were here.” They travelled together as a group from the Break Free From Plastic movement, and asked negotiators to visit their states to experience the air and water pollution firsthand.

“This is still the best option we have to see change in our communities. They’re so captured by corporations. I can’t go to the parish government,” said Jo Banner, of the St John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana. “It feels this is the only chance and hope I have of helping my community repair from this, to heal.” Members of an Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus held a news conference on April 27 to say microplastics are contaminating their food supply and the pollution threatens their communities and ways of life guaranteed to them in perpetuity. They felt their voices weren’t being heard.

“We have bigger stakes. These are our ancestral lands that are being polluted with plastic,” Juressa Lee of New Zealand said after the event. “We’re rightsholders, not stakeholders. We should have more space to speak and make decisions than the people causing the problem.” In the Bay of Plenty, a source of seafood on New Zealand’s northern coast, the sediment and shellfish are full of tiny plastic particles. They regard nature’s “resources” as treasures, Ms. Lee added.

“Indigenous ways can lead the way,” Ms. Lee said. “What we’re doing now clearly is not working.” Vi Waghiyi travelled from Alaska to represent Arctic Indigenous peoples. She’s reminding decision-makers that this treaty must protect people from plastic pollution for generations to come.

She said, “We come here to be the conscience, to ensure they make the right decision for all people.”