“Familiar impasse: on the global response to eliminating plastic pollution”
Plastic pollution is everywhere choking oceans, littering streets, invading the most remote corners of the planet. Yet, despite decades of warnings, the world’s response is trapped in a frustrating cycle: talk, pledges, small bans, and then… more plastic. We produce over 400 million tons of plastic annually, and much of it is designed to outlast us all. Laws against single-use plastics exist, but enforcement is weak. Corporate pledges abound, but too often they’re voluntary, vague, or purely PR. Meanwhile, consumers are left navigating convenience versus conscience.
The truth is simple: we cannot recycle or regulate our way out of a problem this massive. Solving plastic pollution demands more than incremental change. It demands a rethink of our entire system: how we produce, consume, and dispose of materials. Circular economies, biodegradable alternatives, and binding international agreements are no longer optional. They’re essential.
Global resistance to a universal treaty on eliminating plastic pollution remains stubborn and huge. Last week, the sixth attempt since 2022 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to get member-nations to agree upon a treaty to address plastic pollution ran into the familiar vortex of opposition. There was disagreement among the major blocs of countries on whether comprehensively addressing plastic pollution requires eliminating plastic production itself. All countries agree that the ubiquitous polythene bag, despite its immense practicability and affordability as a container, has ballooned into a civic crisis. India generates around 3.4 million tonnes (MT) of plastic waste but recycles only about 30%. Its plastic consumption rose at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7% from 14 MT in 2016-17 to over 20 MT in 2019-20. India has a production ban on about 20 single-use plastic items — cups, straws, spoons. While this has, to some extent, induced a degree of behavioural change in greater reliance of paper and cloth bags — it has had little impact on waste management and recycling. This is also reflective of the global picture. According to the UNEP, the world produces more than 430 MT of plastic annually, two-thirds of which are short-lived products that soon become waste. Overall, 46% of plastic waste is landfilled, while 22% is mismanaged and becomes litter. In 2019, plastic, which is a derivate of fossilised crude, generated 1.8 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions or about 3.4% of the global total.
Plastic, therefore, can be seen as a waste management problem that can be solved by improving incentives for the market to do a better job of collecting waste and recycling. However, there are countries that point to the decades of attempts made on these lines, with limited gains. To add to that, more evidence has piled up that plastic, non-biodegradable as it is, is making its way into human, animal and marine food systems. Island-nations and territories are swamped by plastic waste washing up on their shores. Then there are granular forms of plastic or microplastics with potential for harm. Thus, the only real solution is to reduce at source. However, nations are not all agreed upon this aspect of toxicity. Therefore, in treaty-linked talks, they view calls to cut production as tactics to impose trade barriers and add to the general climate of tariff uncertainty. Unless countries can build greater trust before such talks and hear each other out with an open mind, having more meetings will only be futile. The halcyon days, when some countries could steer resolutions on the environment assuming that the ‘common good’ was incontrovertible, are long past. The familiar impasse isn’t just a policy failure. It’s a reflection of global complacency, short-term thinking, and misplaced priorities. If the world wants to break free from plastic’s chokehold, it’s time for bold action, not empty promises. The question is not if we should act but when we will finally get serious.
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