On Thursday the 6th of October, 2022, the first meeting of the ad-hoc open-ended working group (OEWG) on a Science-Policy panel on chemicals took place.
The first meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC1) of the Plastics Treaty will meet from 28 November – 2 December 2022 in Punta del Este, Uruguay. See background on IPEN's work toward a Plastics Treaty, and check back to this page for updates, resources, and information during the INC-1 meetings.
Understanding Plastics
How Plastics and Chemicals Relate to the Plastics Treaty: Resources for INC-1
For an ambitious Plastics Treaty, it is important to address plastics as materials made from carbon and chemicals. People are exposed to toxic chemicals at every phase of the plastics life cycle – from oil extraction to plastics production, transport, use, and disposal.
Plastics contain toxic chemicals linked to cancer, brain damage, infertility, and other serious conditions. About one-quarter of the chemicals in plastics are known to be toxic, while hundreds more may be as harmful but have never been tested. A Plastics Treaty must be a global health treaty.
See IPEN’s video “Plastics Poisoning Our Health” - available in English, Spanish, and French.
Plastics transport chemicals into every nook and cranny of the world – they bring toxic chemicals into our homes and ultimately into our bodies. Communities already facing disproportionate health impacts from chemical exposures face the greatest threats from plastics.
See the IPEN video “Plastics, Plastic Waste, and Chemicals in Africa”' showing how exports of plastics and plastic waste, mostly from wealthy countries, bring toxic chemicals to Africa, exposing children and families to harmful chemicals and poisoning the circular economy. Available in English and French.
Industry promotes recycling as the solution to plastics pollution, but most plastics are never recycled. Further, making plastic waste into fuel creates more dangerous chemicals, magnifying the health threats from plastics.
The toxic chemicals in plastics make them inherently incompatible with circular economic approaches. We need immediate steps to significantly reduce production of plastics and a fundamental shift in our materials economy to replace them with safer, sustainable materials that promote a healthy, circular economic future.
(Rome, Italy) A U.N. expert scientific review committee has evaluated two toxic, chemical additives found in many common plastics and has concluded the evidence of the substances harm to health and the environment qualify them for global elimination, recommending that the chemicals be listed under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
Opinion article in The Standard by IPEN Communications Consultant Patricia Kombo
Thursday, 29 September 2022
Plastic pollution is visible and well documented, but we often overlook the invisible chemicals in plastics that are hazardous to people and the environment. Studies show that chemicals from plastics are linked to serious health problems (for more on health threats to Africa from plastics see the IPEN video at http://bit.ly/AfricaPlastic)
A new report compiled by Valerie Denney, a long-time communications adviser to IPEN, warns that a plastic waste-burning “bioenergy” facility proposed for the city of Gary, Indiana (about 30 miles south of Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan) will cause major health and environmental problems.
On the sidelines of the 51st Regular Session of the Human Rights Council, this year’s Geneva Toxic Free Talks took place over two days of conferences and discussions, celebrating 25 years of the mandate and the struggle for the right to live in a toxic free environment.
In this video, Lee Bell, IPEN Policy Adviser, spoke (from 40:10 to 1:10:25) at the side event on non-combustion technologies for plastic waste disposal and the myth of chemical recycling of plastics.
The Eighteenth meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutant Review Committee is scheduled to address the following issues; see the document below for IPEN's positions.
Plastics = Carbon and Chemicals
Plastics Threaten Our Health
