Combating pollution

Lowering plastic production will be the key

Two years after representatives from 175 countries gathered in Nairobi and agreed to develop the first legally mandated treaty on plastic pollution, there is little hope that the world can reach a consensus and successfully forge a treaty to combat the ecological harm posed by plastics anytime soon. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution was convened for the fourth time in Ottawa this week. However, it was no surprise that even after holding talks well past midnight, no common ground could be found regarding the imposition of limits on plastic production. While most countries agreed on the need to tackle plastic pollution across its lifecycle, from the initial extraction of fossil fuels for plastic production to the end-of-life disposal of plastic waste, some argued that imposing production limits may not be feasible. Petrochemical-rich countries and several industry groups lobbied against the proposal. Instead, they want the treaty to focus on plastic recycling and waste management.

It is well known that focusing on waste management and recycling will not be enough to address the plastic crisis. The world generates about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. Of the 7 billion tonnes of plastic waste produced globally thus far, less than 10 per cent has been recycled. In fact, much of the plastic waste ends up in oceans and landfills. Plastics are synthetic polymers, which makes them non-biodegradable. The problem does not end here. The production process is also greenhouse gas-intensive. Additional emission emanates from the process of polymerisation. Estimates from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US suggest that plastic creation generated 2.24 gigatonnes of planet-heating pollution in 2019 — as much as 600 coal-fired power plants. Under a 4 per cent annual production growth scenario, plastic production would emit 5.13 gigatonnes of pollution in 2050, even if the world can successfully decarbonise the power grid by then.

In this context, the inability to come up with a global treaty urgently shows business and economic interests are superseding potential ecological gains. Notably, the top seven plastic-producing companies are fossil-fuel companies. In the past few decades, a fresh worry regarding plastics has crept up — their toll on human health. Traces of micro and nano-plastics have found their way into human blood and even human placenta. Developing proper disposal systems and waste-collection techniques are not enough to prevent the climate impact of plastics, or prevent them from entering the human body, the vast amount of which happens before plastic becomes waste. Slashing production is, therefore, key to mitigating the problem in the long run.

In 2022, India implemented the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2021, which banned 19 categories of single-use plastic, although they account for only 11 per cent of single-use plastic in the country. But their use is still rampant, with sales continuing across several outlets. Unfortunately, the task of resolving the plastic problem is not attracting sufficient private or public funding, leading to inadequate availability of cost-effective alternatives. Methods such as photo-oxidation or breeding plastic-eating microbes like natriegens bacteria have not been able to scale up either. For now, the road to Busan seems uncertain — the place where the fifth meeting of the negotiating committee is scheduled to be held later this year.