Shaping the Global Plastic Pollution Treaty: SPE's Role in INC-5

Cloudy with a Chance of National Regulations

By Conor Carlin, SPE President

November 25, 2024, marked 1,000 days since the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted Resolution 5/14, which launched efforts to end plastics pollution through an internationally binding agreement. As president of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), I joined thousands of country delegates, NGOs, businesses, and scientists at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Fifth Session (INC-5), in Busan, South Korea, for what was hoped to be the final round of treaty negotiations.

While consensus remained elusive after seven intense days, the experience underscored both the complexity of the challenge and the importance of SPE’s potential contributions. Representing SPE, I observed negotiations and engaged with stakeholders to identify how our organization’s unique technical and educational expertise could support the treaty’s objectives.

SPE’s Involvement

SPE’s involvement in INC-5 focused on three key areas:

• Technical Expertise: SPE members offer unparalleled insights into polymer science, recycling technologies, biobased materials, and sustainable design. This unbiased, technical depth is essential for shaping policies addressing plastic pollution challenges. SPE’s network of subject matter experts in geographic sections and technical divisions could be leveraged toward the stated goals of capacity building and technology assistance.
• Global Education: SPE’s longstanding commitment to education positions us to promote responsible plastic use, pollution reduction, and improved recycling practices, empowering industries, and consumers alike.
• Collaborative Networks: By connecting industry, academia, and policymakers, SPE facilitates innovation and practical solutions. This inclusive approach supports UNEP’s treaty objectives by encouraging scalable, sustainable solutions across the plastics value chain.

Scope Creep vs. Precedence

Negotiations in Busan revealed fundamental disagreements over the treaty’s scope. Originally focused on “plastics pollution, including the marine environment,” the eventual objective, as stated in the Chair’s text, expanded (in bracketed text) to include the entire plastics lifecycle, from production to disposal.*

This shift deepened divisions between blocs like the “High Ambition Coalition” (including EU states, Japan, many African countries, and island nations) and the “Like-Minded Countries” (including The League of Arab States, Iran, Russia, and others), while major players like the U.S. and China remained noncommittal. Other countries, including India and Indonesia, were also somewhere in-between, highlighting the challenges in finding global consensus when national circumstances are so divergent. 

Meanwhile, references to existing frameworks like the Basel** and Stockholm*** conventions highlighted overlapping regulatory landscapes, further complicating negotiations. In a recent debrief hosted by the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network, INC Chair, Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso, offered the following: “We couldn't close the negotiation. But we did progress. We did advance. We have now developed, and put many of the provisions, a large number of our articles of the future instrument, on a high level of convergence.  We didn't manage to send provisions or articles to the league, to the legal drafting group, but still, we managed to get them to a high level of convergence.”

Progress Made

Despite some of the rhetoric following the event suggesting the event was “a disaster” or “a failure,” there was some progress to report as well as potential pathways for SPE’s involvement in future rounds of discussions, including Conference of the Parties (COP):

• Shared Recognition of the Problem Countries broadly agreed on the urgency of addressing plastic pollution, specifically its environmental and health impacts. Agreement was reached on the value of lifecycle approaches.
• Draft Text Refinements Delegates refined the treaty draft, narrowing options for measures such as bans on certain single-use plastics, mandatory recycling targets, and the reduction of harmful additives.
• Engagement with Stakeholders Civil society organizations and industry representatives were more deeply involved in discussions. Their contributions enriched technical aspects of the treaty and emphasized the need for practical implementation pathways.

Chris Dixon, Ocean Campaign Leader at UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency, summarized the Busan talks during the OPLN debrief. Despite expressing some concerns about certain countries’ negotiating tactics and lack of transparency for civil society groups in the final days of talks, she offered hope for an eventual agreement.

“We're not that far away from a treaty that could work,” said Dixon. “These three items, production, chemicals of concern and plastic products, and finance, are the three big ticket items which we need to unlock the whole negotiation.”

Next Steps

Despite the lack of an official treaty, INC-5 laid a critical foundation for future negotiations:

• Interim Agreements: Countries agreed to convene further technical working groups to refine contentious elements of the treaty.
• Deadline Pressures: Negotiators are under increased pressure to finalize a treaty by the next session, reflecting growing public and political demand for action.
• Stakeholder Engagement: The push for greater industry accountability and civil society inclusion in discussions is expected to intensify.

The implications for the plastics and recycling industries stem from uncertainty. Businesses face a prolonged period of regulatory ambiguity, with differing national approaches likely to emerge in the absence of a treaty, something that the US delegation appeared to favor at different stages of the negotiations. 

SPE’s Global Cohort Initiative

In preparation for INC-5.2 and eventual COP meetings, SPE has proposed a Global Cohort Initiative where qualified subject matter experts may apply for membership in one or more of the following SPE Technical Cohorts:

• Polymer Science and Engineering
• Plastic Product Design
• Bioplastics
• Polymer Modifiers and Coatings
• Polymer Processing
• Plastics Recycling
• Education and Awareness

The Global Cohort Initiative will ensure SPE’s expertise is fully leveraged in future treaty discussions. SPE members are encouraged to apply for membership in the cohorts as we look forward to the eventual INC-5.2, which is expected to be in the second half of 2025.

The road to a global plastics treaty remains uncertain, but SPE is committed to being a trusted partner in the process, offering the scientific insight and collaborative spirit needed to address this urgent global challenge.

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* Interestingly, at one point during the text editing of resolution 5/14, the US delegation stated that lifecycle analysis (LCA) was not “a robust enough tool” for decision-making across jurisdictions. The proposed text was changed from “based on” to “informed by” a subtle but important distinction that was emblematic of both the diplomacy and jurisprudence exhibited by national delegations. 

** The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, commonly referred to as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty designed to regulate and minimize the movement of hazardous waste between countries, especially from developed to developing nations. The Basel Convention was adopted in 1989 and came into force in 1992, and it sought to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of hazardous waste. Specific plastic waste amendments were added in 2021 with new requirements for “notification, consent, and tracking” of most plastic waste shipments, sometimes referred to as “prior consent.” The US is not party to the Basel Convention.

*** Many chemicals of concern in plastics, such as flame retardants and PFAS, are already regulated under the Stockholm Convention. It is possible that INC5 may expand this scope to include more comprehensive controls on plastics-associated chemicals. Stockholm originally covered 12 POPs but has since expanded to 31, including flame retardants and industrial chemicals like PFOS and HBCD. The United States has signed the Stockholm Convention but has not ratified it. As such, it is not legally bound by the treaty. Despite this, the U.S. has implemented regulations consistent with many of the treaty's requirements, such as restrictions on certain POPs under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).