UN Plastic Treaty stalled, what now?

The structure of the plastic problem hung like a black cloud over the UN negotiations. Social science research has repeatedly concluded that “wicked problems” riddled with complexity, competing interests and a lack of clear solutions can expect little success from transnational multi-stakeholder partnerships.

INC5 participants have seen with their own eyes how such a multi-stakeholder experiment plays out in practice. But all is not lost. The efforts of stakeholders have at least generated publicity and awareness. There was considerable networking in both pro-environment and pro-plastic camps. Producers will continue to sell more than 700 billion dollars' worth of plastic in 2025. The legal frameworks allow for all of this, and growth is institutionally encouraged. According to Eunomia-QUNO research, governments worldwide distributed 43 billion dollars in subsidies to the plastics industry in 2024. Environmental scientists continue to provide evidence of the negative effects of pollution, despite shrinking research budgets.

 

 

The data does not lie. Public health and the environment are being destroyed. From the plastic in every bloodstream, on every beach and in every ditch, to the toxic chemical sauce that always accompanies plastic. Additives, monomers, catalysts, heavy metals, fillers and impurities; they all enter the living environment when plastic items and packaging are purchased. The PlastChem Project already summarised this last year: 4,200 of the 16,000 substances in contemporary plastics are substances of concern.

According to the group of scientists involved in the recently launched “Lancet Countdown on health and plastics”, there is already 8,000 Mt of plastic waste on Earth. Every year, we incur approximately 1.5 trillion dollars in health-related economic damage caused by plastic exposure. This kind of information has little influence on the players who want to increase plastic production. In 30 years' time, the industry hopes to produce two to three times more plastic than it does now.

 

For years, my colleagues and I have been determining the levels of such chemicals in nature and in humans: the chemical mixtures and microplastics from plastic products are reflected in both environmental and human samples. The individual substances do not even need to be present in high concentrations to be harmful, due to mixture toxicity and endocrine disruption at low concentrations. It is not unusual to find hundreds of hazardous substances in a single plastic material. The sum total is enough to render invertebrates unconscious, inflame tissues, disrupt hormones, impair the central nervous system, cause birth defects, or damage DNA. Our bodies are constantly working to repair the damage.

 

 

A while ago, I was looking for other possible angles in the fight for justice and balance with regard to plastic, chemicals, health and the environment. Plastic manufacturers have knowledge, money and PR teams, and are among the most successful polluters on earth. You can engage in dialogue with them, but they are not allowed to change course. If a company profits from the system, it will not be the driving force behind a paradigm shift. But can the environment win without a fight? As the American architect, designer and poet Buckminster Fuller once put it: ‘You never change anything by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’ 

This idea ties in with the notion that a better world starts with yourself. Some people dispute this, but it seems to be a piece of wisdom that has stood the test of time. A better world never starts with the government. It always starts with imagination, a vision that entrenched issues can change and that something different is possible. I am thinking here of Another Science is Possible by the Belgian philosopher Isabel Stengers, and the importance of imaginative engagement, intuition and intention among scientists. As a philosopher, she wants to “activate the possible” in us (rather than merely describing the probable). It is a powerful perspective on the status quo. What if you start to imagine what the world you want to live in looks like, what you wear, who is there, what kind of work you do, how you travel, what you eat? Is there music, how much time do you spend with your family, etc.? That is a starting point. From there, you can always see whether a particular plastic application contributes to that vision.