IPEN’s Role

Following a decade of conducting studies to expose threats from plastic products, transport, and waste disposal, in 2018, IPEN came into the Basel Convention ready to fight the trade in plastic waste. The Convention’s discussions followed the 2017 decision by China to close its borders to the plastic waste trade, leaving a major hole to fill for nations wanting to dump their waste overseas. With a dedicated team at the negotiations, IPEN and a broad coalition welcomed an agreement to include plastic waste under the Convention’s guidance, meaning most plastic wastes could no longer be exported for burning or landfills. 

This effort marked the beginning of IPEN’s toxic plastics campaign. Soon after, a series of IPEN reports exposed threats from plastic recycling. The reports were critical in influencing the EU and Canada in 2020 to end recycling of plastics that contain globally banned chemicals. This was the first acknowledgment by major governments that recycling plastic is not a harmless practice, as it re-circulates toxic chemicals into new products.

In 2022, IPEN succeeded in shifting the plastics crisis narrative from a pollution problem that can be solved by more recycling to establishing plastics as a toxic material that threatens public and environmental health. In March 2022 when the UN Environment Assembly agreed on the need for a Plastics Treaty, only a few governments mentioned chemicals and health. Just seven months later, at the first Treaty negotiations, over 60 countries formally raised these issues – demonstrating the impact of IPEN’s advocacy.