Plastic bottles packed together in a recycling plant.Imago via ZUMA Press

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In the time it takes you to read this sentence—say, four seconds—the world produces nearly 60 metric tons of plastic, almost entirely out of fossil fuels. That’s about 53,000 metric tons an hour, 1.3 million metric tons a day, or 460 million metric tons a year. Those numbers are fueling widespread and growing contamination of Earth’s oceans, rivers, and the terrestrial environment with plastic trash.

In March 2022, the United Nations’ 193 member states got together in Nairobi, Kenya, and agreed to do something about it. They pledged to negotiate a treaty to “end plastic pollution,” with the goal of delivering a final draft by 2025. The most ambitious vision espoused by member states in the negotiating sessions that have taken place so far would require petrochemical companies to stop making so much of the darn stuff by putting a cap on global plastic production.

Given the existential threat this would pose to fossil fuel and chemical companies, you might expect them to be vociferously opposed to the treaty. Yet they claim to support the agreement. They’re even “championing” it, according to statements from a handful of industry groups. The American Chemistry Council has repeatedly “welcome[d]” progress on the treaty negotiations, while an executive from the International Council of Chemical Associations told Plastics Today in April that the industry is “fully committed” to supporting an agreement.

While plastics manufacturers concede that pollution is a scourge, they don’t think the solution is to decrease the production and use of their products.

So what exactly do plastic-producing companies want from the treaty? To answer this question, Grist sifted through dozens of public statements and policy documents from five of the world’s largest petrochemical industry trade organizations, as well as two product-specific industry groups. These documents included press releases reacting to treaty negotiating sessions and longer position statements detailing the industry’s desired pathway to a “world without waste.”

Much of what these groups have published is vague—many documents call for “targets,” for example, without saying what they should be. Grist reached out to all of the groups for clarification, but only two agreed to answer questions about the policies they support.

What we found is that, although they fall far short of what so-called “high-ambition” countries and advocacy groups would like to get out of the treaty, industry groups’ proposals to bolster recycling and waste collection could cause a significant reduction in mismanaged plastic waste—even in the absence of a cap on plastic production. According to a policy analysis tool developed by researchers at the University of California, the elements of the treaty that industry groups support, cobbled together, could cut global plastic pollution by 43 million metric tons annually by 2050—a 36 percent reduction below business-as-usual estimates.

Meanwhile, a realistic production cap could cut annual pollution by 48 million metric tons all by itself. Excluding a production cap from the treaty will make it much harder to rein in plastic pollution, said Douglas McCauley, an associate professor of biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and one of the creators of the policy tool. “It means you really have to ramp up your ambition on what some of the other policies would need to do,” he told Grist.

These numbers matter, because the plastic industry’s influence over the treaty negotiations seems to be growing stronger. At the most recent round of talks—held in Ottawa, Canada, at the end of April—nearly 200 petrochemical and fossil fuel lobbyists registered to attend. That’s 37 more than were registered for the previous session, and more than the number of representatives from European Union member states.

At the same time, several delegations promoted solutions on the industry’s terms. Malaysia warned about the unintended economic consequences of limiting plastic production, and India said the treaty should focus on pollution while considering plastics’ utility to modern society. Given the power of the plastics industry and the tendency of international negotiations to cater to the lowest common denominator, it’s possible that the treaty will strongly reflect these industry priorities.

To understand the industry position on the plastics treaty, it’s important to understand how plastic makers conceptualize the plastics crisis. While they agree that pollution is a scourge, they don’t think the solution is to reduce society’s production and use of plastic. After all, plastics come with myriad benefits. They’re inexpensive, lightweight, and widely used in important sectors like clean energy and medicine—their “unmatched properties and versatility have allowed for incredible innovations that conserve resources and make more things in life possible,” as the Plastics Industry Association has put it. America’s Plastic Makers, an arm of the American Chemistry Council, says policymakers should........

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