A memo from the Trump administration, reportedly seen by Reuters, urges countries to reject caps on plastic production in UN treaty talks.
The United States urged several countries to reject limits on plastic production and plastic chemical additives ahead of this week’s UN plastic treaty negotiations, according to a memo and communications seen by Reuters.
In the communications dated July 25 and shared with countries at the outset of talks on Monday, the U.S. outlined its non-negotiable positions, which place it in direct opposition with more than 100 countries.
This week, delegations from 170 countries have gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate a global agreement on plastic pollution.
The fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.2) follows what was intended to be the last round of negotiations.
The previous meeting in Busan, South Korea, ended without agreement as over 100 nations wanted to cap plastic production while several oil-producing countries were only prepared to target plastic waste.
It is easy to ignore the visible impact of plastic when you bury or export your waste, as the US does.
The U.S. delegation is led by career State Department officials who had represented the Biden administration.
Reuters reports the officials sent memos to countries saying it will not agree to a treaty that includes measures to cap plastic production.
The memo reportedly says that the US doesn’t support measures that it claims will ‘increase the costs of all plastic products that are used throughout our daily lives’.
A State Department spokesperson said each country should take decisions according to its national context.
“Some countries may choose to undertake bans, while others may want to focus on improved collection and recycling,” the spokesperson told Reuters.
Commenting on the report, Sian Sutherland, Co-Founder, A Plastic Planet & Plastic Health Council, said: “This is what it looks like when the few try to dictate the future of the many.
“It is easy to ignore the visible impact of plastic when you bury or export your waste, as the US does. But the health impact (on) US citizens cannot be ignored.
“It’s time to abandon the myth that moving away from plastic is a step backwards. The 100 countries at the UN backing a cap on production already know that.”
A peer-reviewed study in the Lancet medical journal released to coincide with the start of negotiations found that plastic is causing death and disease from infancy to old age.
The Lancet study found that plastics endanger human and planetary health at ‘every stage of their lifecycle’, from fossil fuel extraction, production, use, recycling and disposal.
The world is in a ‘plastic crisis’, it concluded, which is responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US $1·5 trillion annually, with impacts ‘disproportionately’ hitting low-income and at-risk populations.
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