Did you know?

The U.S. reversed its August 2024 position in support of a cap on plastic production, taking a neutral stance on the issue again in Busan.

Taking a Deeper Dive

International Plastic Treaty - It's not over until its over

Image credit: Triple Pundit/Naja Bertolt Jensen/Unsplash

What was scheduled to be the final round of the plastic treaty talks in Busan, Korea,ended on December 1, 2024, without an agreement. On a positive note, some sources felt negotiators came closer to consensus on a number of sticking points. International Negotiating Committee (INC) Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso had expected more but remains hopeful. Vayas told a December 12, 2024, audience in a webinar hosted by the Ocean Plastic Leadership Network that “we have developed many of the provisions of the future instrument [treaty] with a high level of convergence.” A working paper Ambassador Vayas drafted simplified the treaty text and is now the draft being used in the negotiations. He said the negotiators need to keep working together between now and the next negotiation session in the summer of 2025, which will be called INC 5.2. A location and date have yet to be determined.

Plastic production cap blocked

While most articles have focused on the range of issues that need to be resolved, one major issue, caps on plastic production, and two systemic issues have confounded the ability to reach an agreement. Environmentalists and the High Ambition Coalition, 57 countries headed by Norway and Rwanda, supported by nearly 100 countries, have called for a reduction in plastic production. This was met with opposition by a group of oil-producing (plastic-producing) nations headed by Saudi Arabia and including Iran, Russia, and other Gulf states. The U.S. is taking a neutral stance on the issue.

Two systemic issues confound the process

The first systemic issue is that the treaty must be approved by consensus, meaning all nations must approve the final text. This allows plastic-producing countries to block agreements and prevent a strong treaty.

The second systemic issue is the call for a legally binding treaty. There are no international mechanisms to enforce treaty sections except for trade sanctions between countries. Even the International Court of Justice currently investigating legal responsibility for harm caused by climate change recognizes its findings will only be advisory.

OpenOceans Founder Carl Nettleton recently authored two treaty-related articles in TriplePundit.

• The Final Plastic Pollution Treaty Negotiations Are Underway. What Can We Expect?, November 27, 2024
• Why the Plastic Treaty Talks Failed and One Potential Solution, December 9, 2024

 

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Understanding “mass balance” and what it means for recycling

ExxonMobil’s chemical recycling plant in Baytown, Texas, is one of only 11 chemical recycling plants in the United States. Image credit: New York Times/ Sergio Flores/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

According to Plastics Technology, “The global chemical recycling capacity has the potential to grow eight times from its current position by 2029, if all projects (including pre-financial investment decisions (FID)) come to fruition." This assessment comes from data provided by the ICIS Recycling Supply Tracker – Chemical.

Chemical recycling legislation lacking

Plastics Technology writes that legislation surrounding chemical recycling is lacking and that “it would be beneficial to establish clear guidelines as to how companies can allocate chemically recycled material to their products as they try to hit recycling targets. The lack of guidance in this area adds to the overall uncertainty around chemical recycling from a legal standpoint, which negatively impacts investment in the nascent industry.”

The publication defines mass balance as "the accounting of materials entering and leaving a system … Because thermal depolymerization technologies (such as pyrolysis and gasification) are expected to have the largest growth globally based on announced plants, mass balance is now at the center of many discussions [about chemical recycling].”

According to the New York Times, "mass balance is a green certification system that “allows companies … to build up credits for recycling plastic and then apply them to the manufacture of any number of products, regardless of how much recycled material they contain.”

Uses high temperatures, solvents, and other chemical processes

According to the Times, understanding the complicated process requires knowing that chemical recycling “uses high temperatures, pressurization and chemical solvents or other chemical processes not to simply melt plastic but to break it down into its chemical building blocks. The recycled chemicals are then mixed with all sorts of other materials, including fossil-fuel-derived virgin plastic, to make new products.”

Using the mass balance system, companies tally the molecules they produce from recycling plastic and list them in a materials inventory. They receive a recycling credit for those molecules, and, under the mass balance protocol, can then assign the credit to any number of products made by the company.

Impossible to say how much recycled plastic is in a product

With this system, it is impossible to accurately say how much recycled plastic is actually in a given product consisting of a mix of virgin plastic and chemically recycled materials. One product might be given credit for 20% recycled product and have almost no recycled plastic, while another might be given credit for 10% recycled plastic and actually have more. This has led to additional criticism of chemical recycling. Other concerns include the energy it uses, the emissions it produces, and the actual amount of recycled plastic that results.

Tracking Plastic News
 

• Viral study about black plastic spatulas had a big math problem, San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 20224
• Even Without a Global Treaty, More Plastic Waste Reduction Laws Are Coming in 2025, Triple Pundit, December 4, 2024
• Car tires shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment. Urgent action is needed, PHYS.ORG, November 28, 2024
• Inside the Plastic Industry’s Battle to Win Over Hearts and Minds, New York Times, New York Times, November 27, 2024
• Global Plastic Profiles: How well do countries manage their polymer waste?, Down to Earth, November 26, 2024
• Using sunlight to recycle black plastics: Researchers leverage additive to make materials chemically useful, PHYS.ORG, November 25, 2024
• 'Easy, Convenient, Cheap': How Single-use Plastic Rules The World, Barron’s, November 24, 2024
• 7-year study reveals plastic fragments from all over the globe are rising rapidly in the North Pacific Garbage Patch, PHYS.ORG, November 19, 2024
• Where does the UK’s fast fashion end up? I found out on a beach clean in Ghana, The Guardian, September 24, 2024
• Plastic Money: Turning Off the Subsidies Tap, Phase 1 Report, Quaker United Nations Office/eunomia, August 2024

Solutions to the Ocean Plastic Crisis

See more solutions on our ocean plastic solutions page. Have a solution we should know about? Submit it here.

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This Month's Featured Solution: Bureo

Image credit: Bureo

Born from a deep desire to protect the ocean, Bureo offers fishing communities a circular solution to end-of-life fishing nets. The firm incentivizing fishermen to recycle old nets by paying them directly for each kilogram of net or through donations to local NGOs. Since 2013, Bureo has kept over 10 million pounds of fishing nets out of landfills. There are collection hubs across nine countries where nets are sorted, cleaned, shredded, and sent to recycling partners. Depending on the material (HDPE or nylon), the fishing nets undergo a process based on mechanical recycling or depolymerization to create NetPlus pellets. Fabrics made with NetPlus nylon meet rigorous standards, are 100% traceable, and are repurposed in sports products like Patagonia jackets, hat brims, and skateboard planks. The Life Cycle Assessment comparing Netplus Nylon 6 to Virgin Nylon 6 shows a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases and nearly a 70% reduction in fossil fuels and water. Bureo is a certified B-Corp and a member of 1% for the Planet.

Meet the Experts and Leaders

OpenOceans Global is identifying ocean plastic experts from around the world. Here are two experts leading efforts to reduce plastic pollution that you should know about.

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Albert Magalang, Chief, Climate Change Service, Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources

Image Credit: Earth Negotiations Bulletin

Albert Magalang is the Chief of the Climate Change Service of the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources. He represents the Philippines at the UN Environment Assembly and is a member of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on the Global Plastics Treaty. He has been active in the treaty negotiations, including the intersessional work and technical dialogues, and has participated in informal meetings under the leadership of INC Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso. Magalang says the INC-5 meetings have “provided a way forward to consolidate the conference room papers into a uniform proposal to be endorsed by the member states.” He is also the Head of the Secretariat of the Philippine Designated National Authority (DNA) for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol. Magalang is a regular member of the Philippine delegation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the country’s representative to the ASEAN Working Group on Climate Change. He is the national focal point at the UN’s Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) initiative and served as a facilitator for ACE negotiations. In 1991, Magalang wrote a song about climate change, still available on the internet, called BABALA (Climate Warning), inspired by the IPCC’s first assessment report that warned about increasing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. “Are you not troubled by all the warnings? For once this earth devastates, where will life begin?” Magalang is a licensed Scuba diver. He holds a B.S. in biology from the University of the Philippines and an MBA from St. Louis University.

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Jodie Roussell, Global Public Affairs Lead - Packaging & Sustainability, Nestlé

Image credit: Nestlé

Jodie Roussell is the Global Public Affairs Lead - Packaging & Sustainability at Nestlé, where she manages global public affairs and engagement for packaging, the circular economy, and sustainability. She has emerged as an informed and respected voice for the business perspective on plastic, plastic waste, and the plastic treaty. Nestlé is the biggest food company in the world, with a market capitalization of $222 billion. Nestlé aims to design 95% of packaging for recycling by 2025 with the ambition of getting to 100% recyclable or reusable packaging. The firm is also reducing the use of virgin plastic by one-third by 2025. Roussell’s industry responsibilities include the Steering Board of the Global Plastics Action Partnership at the World Economic Forum, the Advisory Board of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy, and as Co-chair of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty. In 2023, Roussell told Plastics News that the Business Coalition is focused on the reduction of virgin plastic production, reuse and refill standards, recyclability, and EPR. Previous positions include CEO of the Global Solar Council, Head of Public Affairs for Europe, Africa & Latin America at Trina Solar, and Head of Energy Utilities & Technology at the World Economic Forum. She co-founded and served as COO of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit association. Roussell holds a B.S. from Georgetown University, an MBA from IMD Business School, and executive education at Wharton, Colombia, and London Business School. She speaks English, German, Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish.