Different ideas for dealing with plastic pollution will be discussed in the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2), but the so-called High Ambition Coalition of countries led by Norway and Rwanda wants to start where plastic itself starts.

On its website, the coalition’s 54 members call for “binding provisions in the treaty to restrain and reduce the production and consumption of primary plastic polymers to sustainable levels.”

The Industry Ministry worries that the plan would do undue damage to local industries, including petrochemical projects that involve foreign investors and have yet to get up and running.

The government says it supports efforts to protect the environment but needs to allow for further growth of the industry to “balance between economic, environmental and social aspects.”

That sounds fair enough, but can the issue be seriously tackled without reducing or at least capping virgin plastic production, given that global plastic output almost doubled in the first two decades of this century?

In 2019, “only 9 percent of plastic waste was ultimately recycled,” according to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report. Almost 50 percent ended up in landfills, and “22 percent was disposed of in uncontrolled dumpsites, burned in open pits or leaked into the environment.” In that one year alone, 22 million tonnes of plastic materials leaked into the environment.

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