Compiled By Obert Bore

Plastic is a growing crisis with destructive impact on the environment, human health, human rights, environmental justice, biodiversity, and climate. Global efforts to address this crisis are urgently needed and global leaders, through United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolution 5/14  “End plastic pollution: towards an international legally binding instrument, requested the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to convene an intergovernmental negotiating committee, to begin its work during the second half of 2022, with the ambition of completing its work by the end of 2024. The intergovernmental negotiating committee is to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, which could include both binding and voluntary approaches, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic, considering, among other things, the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, as well as national circumstances and capabilities. The UNEA resolutions 1/6, 2/11, 3/7, 4/6, 4/7 and 4/9 strongly affirms the urgent need to strengthen global coordination, cooperation and governance to take immediate action towards the long-term elimination of plastic pollution in marine and other environments, and to avoid detriment from plastic pollution to ecosystems and the human activities dependent on them.

At its second session, the intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC 2) requested the Chair, with the support of the secretariat, to prepare a Zero Draft of the Global Plastic Treaty,for consideration at the INC 3. The INC-3 is scheduled to take place from 13 to 19 November 2023 at the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. ZELA, together with the Global CSO Coalition for the Plastic Treaty, Call upon governments, and the African Group to ensure that we develop a strong and effective #PlasticsTreaty that meaningfully addresses all aspects of the #PlasticsCrisis. We call for this instrument to take into account the national circumstances and particularly for African countries to ensure a fair, equitable, and inclusive transition, for affected populations, with special consideration for people in vulnerable situations, especially women, children, youth and waste pickers.

Our key asks for the Plastic Treaty include the following key issues:

✓ Plastic Production Reduction – The Treaty should provide mechanisms tosubstantially reduce aggregate global plastic production to protect human and environmental health, uphold human rights for current and future generations, and respect planetary boundaries. In 2017, global plastic production was sitting at 348 million tones and this is expected to double by 2040. The treaty should, therefore,ensure that production is significantly reduced.

✓ Prioritize Reuse – Prioritize the reduction of plastics and expand the implementation of reuse systems rather than relying on recycling, bio-based, biodegradable, and compostable plastics, and non-plastic alternatives.

✓ Chemicals of Concern – Establish transparency standards that include a complete identification, elimination, and traceability of chemicals, including polymers, that are hazardous or of concern, across the full lifecycle of plastics to regulate these chemicals by group based on the no data no market principle.

✓ Non-Essential Plastic Products – for sustainable consumption and production of primary plastic and eliminating specific problematic polymers, chemicals, productsand applications of concern.

✓ Microplastics – Develop and implement tailored measures to prevent microplastic pollution at source and across the full lifecycle of plastics, including alternatives and substitutes.

✓ Waste Management – Apply the zero-waste hierarchy, applying the prevention and precautionary principles to chemicals, polymers, and plastic products and their alternatives and substitutes across their full lifecycle, and prohibit waste management technologies and systems assessed as unsafe, unsustainable, non-transparent, and non-essential by an independent expert subsidiary body of multi stakeholders under the instrument.

✓ Financial Mechanism – Include a strong financial mechanism that adheres to the zero waste hierarchy to facilitate the flows of financial resources from the developed to the developing world, particularly for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

✓ Independent Science and Technical Body – Establish a multistakeholder science-policy interface (including rightful knowledge holders and socio-economic expert groups) as a subsidiary body of the instrument established with the support of a robust conflict of interest policy.