Activist and environmentalist groups have termed the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations that concluded in Ottawa, Canada, on Tuesday as “disappointing”. Nearly 192 member countries deliberated for nearly a week to iron out a legally binding agreement to “end plastic pollution”. This was the fourth round of talks since countries resolved in 2022 to eliminate plastics and formed an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which consisted of government representatives tasked with drawing up a timeline for countries to not only eliminate plastic use but also halt production.
However the close connection between plastics and the oil economies of prominent countries, the vast manufacturing businesses that revolve around making and supplying different grades of plastics, the near ubiquity of the polymer’s use in a variety of applications and the paucity of affordable, equivalent alternatives constitute the biggest roadblocks to its elimination. Because plastics do not easily degrade organically, they pollute marine and terrestrial ecosystems and have been long characterised as among the toughest environmental contaminants.
