Negotiators Get Closer to Agreeing on a Plastic Pollution Treaty
Source: US News and World Report/AP
Nov. 29, 2024, at 4:02 a.m.
BUSAN, South Korea (AP) Negotiators working on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution inched closer to an agreement Friday, with more countries saying they want to address the total plastic on Earth. The most contentious issue of the talks is whether there will be a limit on the amount of plastic that companies are allowed to produce. Panama proposed text for the treaty to address plastic production on Thursday.
Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama's delegation, said it's a compromise proposal to build consensus because it does not include a numerical target or production cap. Instead, it says countries would adopt a global target at a later conference of the parties meeting.
Support for Panama's proposal quickly grew to over 100 countries. Some plastic-producing and oil and gas countries, including Saudi Arabia, vigorously oppose including plastic production in the treaty, calling it a red line. Russias delegation has said if the world is serious about this treaty, negotiators must concentrate on provisions acceptable for all delegations.
On Friday afternoon, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the committee chair from Ecuador, issued a paper with draft treaty text, condensing the views expressed by negotiators during the week. The treaty article on production has Panama's proposal. The other option is to strike that article.
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-11-29/negotiators-get-closer-to-agreeing-on-a-plastic-pollution-treaty
nmmi
(206 posts). . . The United Nations projects that plastics production is likely to rise from about 440 million tons (400 million metric tons) a year to more than 1,200 million tons (1,100 million metric tons ((by 2050, according to the link -nmmi)), saying our planet is choking in plastic.
In the September 6 issue of The Week, there is a blurb about the situation in U.S. as far as plastics in the brain. In part:
TexLaProgressive
(12,333 posts)How plastics have increased in use. It's plastic grocery bags including the reusable ones. My peanut butter is in a glass jar with a steel lid bound with a shrink wrap security band, medicine bottles, CGM applicators, Urostomy & colon ostomy supplies, laundry baskets & hampers, parts of vehicles, cell phones, tablets, TVs, computers, shrink wrap used to secure pallet loads - this list can go on to ad infinitum.
There was some plastic stuff in my childhood - phone cases, some toys like hula hoops and water guns, but not much else. Pallet loads were secured with steel straps, delicate stuff was protected by excelsior in wooden crates, tape was paper or cellophane (biodegradable made from cellulose).
The ever increasing use of plastics is caused by the petrochemical industry needing a market for chemical biproducts of oil refineries.
Stargazer99
(3,016 posts)NOT the taxpayer who had no choice-capitalism will be the death of the planet