IPEN is featured in several news reports on the Plastics Treaty INC-1. Summaries from a few articles are below (click the headlines for the full story).
See all of IPEN's resources from the INC-1 here.
Associated Press
Negotiators take first steps toward plastic pollution treaty
On Friday afternoon more than 2,000 experts will wrap up a week of negotiations on plastic pollution at one of the largest global gatherings ever to address what even industry leaders in plastics say is a crisis.
It was the first meeting of a United Nations committee set up to draft what is intended to be a landmark treaty to bring an end to plastic pollution globally.
“If we look 30 years from now, we’re set to have four times more plastic. We’re in an extremely unfortunate situation. So you must have a global approach to this,” said Björn Beeler, who was at the meeting as the international coordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN.
Entire beaches on what used to be pristine islands are now mounded with trash. Examination of a random handful of sand in many places reveals pieces of plastic.
Tadesse Amera, an environmental scientist, said the treaty should address not only waste but the environmental health issues posed by chemicals in plastics as the products are used, recycled, discarded or burned as waste. Amera is the director of Pesticide Action Nexus Association Ethiopia and IPEN co-chair.
“It’s not a waste management issue,” he said. “It’s a chemical issue and a health issue, human health and also biodiversity.”
Reuters
Countries split on plastics treaty focus as UN talks close
The first round of negotiations on a global plastics treaty ended on Friday with agreement to end plastic pollution but a split on whether goals and efforts should be global and mandatory, or voluntary and country-led.
Even as some countries are split on the approach the treaty should take, some observers said there seems to be growing agreement that plastic pollution is not just about waste ending up in the ocean.
"Plastics are not anymore being seen as just a marine litter issue. People are discussing plastic as a material made of chemicals," said Vito Buonsante, policy adviser for the International Pollutants Elimination Network. "There has been a narrative shift."
Wired
The Planet Desperately Needs That UN Plastics Treaty
This week in Uruguay, scientists, environmentalists, and government representatives—and, of course, lobbyists—are gathering to begin negotiations on a United Nations treaty on plastics. It’s only the start of talks, so we don’t know how they will shape up, but some of the bargaining chips on the table include production limits and phasing out particularly troublesome chemical components. A draft resolution released in March set the tone, acknowledging that “high and rapidly increasing levels of plastic pollution represent a serious environmental problem at a global scale, negatively impacting the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.”
…Plastic pollution is no longer this thing that happens to beaches, or to sea turtles, but something that has tainted our own bodies. “Going beyond the understanding of plastic waste as merely a problem of litter, we are starting to see the importance of understanding plastics as materials made of hundreds of harmful chemicals,” says Vito Buonsante, technical and policy adviser at the International Pollutants Elimination Network, who’s attending the talks.
