To advance a draft international treaty against plastic pollution, 175 countries gathered in Canada. They will meet at the end of the year in South Korea to finalize the text. The differences relate in particular to restrictions on the production of plastic packaging, while a study rightly points to the responsibility of manufacturers.
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At the global level, the equivalent of a garbage truck of plastic waste is dumped every minute into the oceans and plastic production continues to grow: it is now 460 million tonnes per year, which is two times more than 20 years ago, and at the current rate, it could triple again by 2060.
However, scientists from a dozen universities around the world have robustly established that despite all recycling efforts, each 1% increase in production results in a 1% increase in pollution. in nature and in the oceans. Clearly, to reduce the quantity of plastic waste, there is no other solution than to reduce production, say these researchers. Hence the project for the first international treaty against plastic pollution discussed since 2022 by 175 countries.
Coca Cola causes one in ten waste
And this study also shows that plastic pollution is very concentrated around a few major product brands. After analyzing the names and commercial logos still visible on thousands of plastic debris collected by volunteers in more than 80 countries, it appears that only 56 companies are at the origin of half of this waste found in nature. Half of the pollution from plastic packaging is therefore the work of a minority of manufacturers, including Coca Cola, the source of one in ten waste, then Pepsico, Nestlé, Danone and Philip Morris.
It is up to these manufacturers and world leaders to cap this use of plastic, according to these researchers, by focusing more on the reuse of containers with refill systems. Because recycling will clearly not be enough. Today, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, hence the urgency to significantly and quickly reduce production at source. This is also the message conveyed by the European Union in the Ottawa negotiations. But producers of plastic and oil, an essential manufacturing ingredient, fiercely defend their economic interests. NGOs denounced the presence at the Ottawa negotiations of 196 petrochemical lobbyists. They were thus more numerous than the 180 representatives of the European Union.
