Oil giants blocked a treaty to curb plastic pollution, but countries will try again

International negotiations to create a legally binding treaty to stem the tide of plastic pollution ended in a stalemate on Monday — pushing talks past their initial deadline and into next year.

More than 100 countries have shown support for limits on plastic manufacturing. They’ve faced fierce opposition from other countries that are major fossil fuel producers and who want to focus on managing waste rather than tamping down plastic production.

But there’s no way to get a handle on the plastic pollution building up in our landfills, oceans, and bodies without stopping the problem at its source, according to supporters of a production cap. Setting manufacturing limits would have the added benefit of curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Health advocates also want stronger rules to prevent the use of hazardous chemicals in plastics.

“We’re in it with heavy hearts. Our communities at home are suffering,” says Jo Banner, who traveled from her home in Louisiana to attend the negotiations that took place in Busan, South Korea, over the past week (and which coincided with the Thanksgiving holiday in the US). “We are the canary in the coal mine.”

Banner and her sister founded The Descendants Project, a nonprofit that advocates for communities along an industrial corridor in Louisiana, where many descendants of enslaved Black people live. What was once known as “Plantation Country” is now often called “Cancer Alley” after roughly 150 oil refineries, plastics plants, and petrochemical facilities have moved into the region. Toxic air pollution has been linked to higher cancer risks in communities with predominantly Black residents and neighborhoods with high poverty rates near industrial facilities in Louisiana.

Plastic is made with petroleum, in addition to more than 16,000 different chemicals. Just 6 percent of those chemicals are subject to international regulation, and 4,200 are hazardous “chemicals of concern,” according to recent research.

Those chemicals worry advocates who live near plastic-producing facilities as well as researchers studying the growing impact of plastic pollution around the world. Plastic production doubled between 2000 and 2019 alone, reaching 460 million metric tons, according to countries that joined a High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.

“We’re on the fence line [bordering industrial facilities], but make no mistake, everybody’s on the line,” Banner tells The Verge. “It’s just a matter of time before that fence line is in your backyard. So now is the time to act and intervene.”

Banner has attended each of the five rounds of plastic treaty negotiations involving more than 170 countries that have taken place since 2022. Environmental advocates had hoped for a treaty similar to past international agreements to curb the use of ozone-depleting substances and stop global warming. But what was supposed to be the final round of talks in Busan came to a close at 2:50AM local time on Monday without a deal. Instead, another meeting is supposed to be scheduled sometime in 2025.

“We have been forced to delay addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time to a later date by a few obstructionist countries,” Merrisa Naidoo, a plastic program manager at the nonprofit GAIA Africa, said in a statement shared with reporters by email.

Delegates from Saudi Arabia led a group of petroleum-producing countries that fought any measures that would limit plastic production, The New York Times reported. The US, the world’s biggest oil producer, notably chose not to join other countries in the High Ambition Coalition nor nations that submitted a proposal to set “a global target to reduce the production of primary plastic polymers to sustainable levels.” 

“We are not here to end plastic itself … but plastic pollution,” a delegate from Kuwait said during the closing plenary.

Instead of capping plastic production, they want to improve recycling rates. Current rates are so abysmal that environmental groups often call recycling a “myth.” Less than 10 percent of plastic waste is recycled.

Plastic is difficult and expensive to recycle, in part because there are so many different types and ingredients. Even when it’s rehashed, it gets “downcycled” because it’s hard to maintain the same quality of material with each use. Plastic bottles are used to make fibers for carpeting, for example. And gadgets made using recycled plastic generally have to be reinforced with virgin plastic. In the end, it often winds up being cheaper to make new plastic rather than recycling.

Despite the lack of a final agreement, Banner is still holding out hope that a strong plastics treaty can eventually come together. “It’s still disappointing that we weren’t able to reach the treaty yet,” she says. “But at the same time, I feel more motivated and more just reinvigorated to continue the process and definitely pushing more ambition.”