Plastics Recycling Conference 2023: Taking global action on plastics

The Global Plastics Treaty, a resolution to address the full life cycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal, was endorsed at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) in Nairobi, Kenya, in March of last year, with the goal of producing an international legally binding agreement by 2024.

The UN Environment Program (UNEP) says shifting to a circular economy for plastics can reduce the volume of this material entering oceans by more than 80 percent by 2040; reduce virgin plastic production by 55 percent; save governments $70 billion by 2040; reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent; and create 700,000 additional jobs, mainly in the global south.

The resolution is based on three initial draft resolutions from various nations and seeks to promote sustainable production and consumption of plastics by addressing product design and environmentally sound waste management, including through resource efficiency and circular economy approaches. It establishes an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which began work in 2022, with the goal of completing a draft global legally binding agreement by the end of 2024.

During the Plastics Recycling Conference, which Resource Recycling hosted in partnership with its parent company, the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), in National Harbor, Maryland, in early March, Monica Medina, assistant secretary for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs for the U.S. Department of State, shared her insights into the development of the Global Plastics Treaty.

“I don't see this as a one-time thing,” she told attendees of the session titled U.S. Stake in the Global Plastics Treaty. “I think we need to have a continuing dialogue with you in order to improve our work, our ability to do our work, and to make the best international agreements we can on plastic pollution.”

Medina recognized Laura Williams, whom she described as lead negotiator.

Medina described those in attendance as “necessary partners in our work on recycling and on solving this crisis, adding, “We're not here just to make an agreement; we’re here solve the problem of plastic pollution.”

She spoke of the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997 by yachtsman Charles Moore and how the situation has worsened since. “And now we know that plastic has found its way actually everywhere in the ocean. We know the amount that we produce increases every year. And there's more and more plastic in the ocean. … This is a serious growing problem that threatens our environment, our economy and our human health.”

Medina acknowledged that plastics have many “vital” applications, including in medical devices. “We are not here to demonize plastic,” she said. “We want to focus on plastic pollution. We need to take a comprehensive approach to combating it in the life cycle of plastics. And, as plastic recyclers, I think you know well the scale of the problem.”

She described the situation as an “all hands on deck problem that we have to solve” that necessitates the federal government work with the private sector, philanthropies, innovators, universities and other researchers. “As diplomats, we’re working to build the political will of governments all around the world and other partners … to build the capacity to deal with this problem.”

Medina said negotiations on the treaty are well underway, referencing the first of the INC meetings last November. Five total rounds of negotiations will take place to develop the agreement by 2024.

The State Department is being aided in the effort by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Navy, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of Interior and others.

“From the U.S. perspective, we need an ambitious, innovative and country-driven agreement, kind of like the Paris Agreement … where countries come up with their own action plans,” Medina said. “We don't have a one-size-fits-all solution … that’s supposed to fit every country in the world. They're all different. They all have different problems with plastic.”

In terms of the U.S. national action plan, she said the “North Star” goal includes eliminating the release of plastic into the environment by 2040. “We need mechanisms to provide transparency, reporting and monitoring of progress so that we know when we're going.”

Tracking progress will be a foremost challenge, Medina said, because we have so little data presently. “So, working with you, I think, will be pivotal to understanding whether we're actually increasing recycling, which we don't even know what the baseline is. We kind of know that our U.S. recycling percentage is abysmally low.”

She said the federal government is working to ensure that stakeholders are part of the process from the get-go and that public-private partnerships and other financial tools and mechanisms will be pivotal.

The Biden-Harris administration takes the issue of plastic pollution seriously, Medina said, having appointed a senior director for chemical safety and plastic pollution to the Council on Environmental Quality. The U.S. EPA is developing a plastic strategy, and the Department of Energy is funding research to increase plastic circularity and reduce plastic waste. The State Department also is working with state and local governments to encourage greater action on plastic pollution prevention, reuse and recycling, she said.

“I'm a diplomat and I represent the U.S. to our foreign counterparts,” Medina said. “And one of my most important jobs in doing that is understanding the perspectives of our constituents, you us stakeholders--so that's why I'm here today.”

Steve Alexander, president and CEO of the Washington-based APR, said the organization has been named an official designee to the talks and will be at the table providing comments, reviewing proposals and providing technical expertise. He credited Williams and the secretary's office for making that possible.

He also posed a number of questions to Media about the treaty, including what a U.S. national action plan could look like.

"I think we're thinking about a sort of multifaceted approach,” she said. “So recycling is a huge part of that. But we also need reuse and reduction.”

Medina brought up the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that involved toxic chemicals used to make polyvinyl chloride, saying it was “another wake-up call to us that we need a more holistic approach that includes all of the above: reduce, reuse and recycling. And, I think to my mind, the U.S. EPA will have a lot to say about a national plan. But really, it's going to come down to state and local governments, and our ability to leverage changes in state and local governments’ laws that will help us to sort of flip the paradigm here.”

She said the national action plan likely will be a set of standards on things like recycling, including creating more consistency from locality to locality and state to state, and measuring success. “So, I could imagine that a national action plan has some elements of reducing, eliminating or phasing out some of the most toxic chemicals that are in plastics,” Medina said.

“Another one that would help is to standardize things like colors on bottles,” she continued, adding that the plastics recycling industry’s input on such standards is welcome.

Once the U.S. has developed its plan, it will be presented to an international organization or body associated with the UN to evaluate whether it can meet that 2040 goal, Medina explained. “Every four or five years, we'll have to report on how we're doing against our national action plan.”

“You've probably the holy grail of the issue for us, and that is different standards, not just among countries, but among states,” Alexander said. “Is there a concept in the national action plan to be more prescriptive in terms of federal guidelines for potential use in terms of standardization?”

Medina said, “Our national action plan should be the kind of thing that makes your jobs easier. … And I do think there is a strong desire for that. And we need your help figuring out how to find that right balance between top-down description and standardization and bottom-up innovation and flexibility. And so I don't have a single answer for you. But I can tell you that we are working very hard to find that balance. And that's what we want to do in the agreement so that we don't make our jobs harder, but also want to allow enough flexibility that we can bring innovation to the table.”

Alexander asked if the national action plan will address the area of supply, to which Medina said, “Everyone's so used to the convenience of single-use plastics in particular, and I don't know that we can bring the public along overnight. So I think what we need from you is a sense of how to actually lift that paradigm.” She mentioned that supply and demand for recycled plastics need to be addressed.

Medina said once the national action plan is finalized, if no laws need to be changed, it can just be implemented. Otherwise, Congress will have to vote on it.