UN Talks on Global Plastics Treaty Collapse

UN negotiations on a global treaty to combat plastic pollution have once again reached an impasse. This was the sixth round of discussions in less than three years, and although the talks were formally scheduled to conclude on Thursday, delegates worked late into the night in a bid to bridge the divides.

The core split remained between a bloc of roughly 100 countries pressing for limits on plastic production and oil-exporting states advocating a focus on recycling measures. In the early hours of Friday, Cuba’s representatives said the nations had “missed a historic opportunity, but we must carry on”.

The talks, launched in 2022 in response to mounting scientific evidence of the harm plastics cause to human health and the environment, have once again ended without progress. While plastics remain integral to almost every industry, scientists are particularly alarmed by the toxic compounds they contain, which can be released as products break down into smaller fragments.

Microplastics have already been detected in soil, rivers, the air—and even in human organs. The original plan was to seal an agreement by the end of last December, but that deadline slipped, and the collapse of the current round pushes the treaty’s signing even further into the future.

Speaking on behalf of the small island states in the northern Pacific, Palau said: “We are once again returning home without sufficient progress to show our people. It is unjust that we bear the brunt of yet another global environmental crisis to which we have contributed almost nothing.”

The central rift proved impossible to bridge: some countries insist the treaty must address the problem at its source by cutting plastic production, while others argue for focusing on waste management and recycling.

Major oil producers, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, view plastic made from fossil fuels as a strategically vital sector in an era of global transition from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles. They contend that the solution lies in improving waste collection and expanding recycling infrastructure—a stance also backed by many manufacturers. “Plastic is the foundation of modern life; it is used everywhere,” said Ross Eisenberg, president of the American Plastics Manufacturers Association. “The priority should be to end plastic pollution, not plastic production.” He also warned that replacing plastics with other materials could lead to “unintended consequences”.

Scientists, however, caution that recycling alone cannot be relied upon: the global recycling rate is estimated at around 10%, and even if it rose to 20–30%, a substantial share of waste would still pollute the environment and harm health. “We must improve recycling, but it cannot be expected to address every aspect of the problem,” said Costas Velis, associate professor of waste and resource management at Imperial College London.

Since 1950, plastic production has surged from 2 million tonnes to about 475 million tonnes in 2022 and is projected to keep rising without additional measures. Around 100 countries, including the UK and the EU, are calling for caps on production and standardised product design to make recycling easier—even down to requirements such as making all plastic bottles the same colour, as coloured items fetch barely half the value of clear ones.

This position has won support from major packaging companies, including Nestlé and Unilever, which are part of a coalition under the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The coalition also advocates harmonising extended producer responsibility schemes, which would impose a small levy on plastic goods to fund recycling. By its estimates, such measures could double countries’ revenues to $576 billion by 2040.

Talks, originally due to conclude on Thursday, ran through the night in the hope of breaking the deadlock. The meeting’s chair, Luis Vayas of Ecuador, presented a new draft text that aligned more closely with proposals from a UK-led group of countries. It did not include the British-backed call for a global cap on plastic production, but stipulated that states should take their own steps to address other issues—such as hazardous chemicals in plastics and redesigning products to make them easier to recycle.

At the final session, the EU delegation said it viewed the draft as “a good basis for future negotiations”. Oil-producing nations, however, were deeply dissatisfied: Saudi Arabia called the negotiating process “problematic”, while Kuwait said its position “was not reflected” in the text.

Many environmental organisations condemned the outcome, accusing oil states of putting profit ahead of the planet’s health. Graham Forbes, head of the Greenpeace delegation to the Global Plastics Treaty talks, said: “The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wake-up call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head-on. The vast majority of governments wanted a strong agreement, but a handful of bad-faith actors managed to bury ambition by exploiting procedural tactics.”

The chair announced that negotiations would resume at a later date.