The Alliance for Mission-Based Recycling (AMBR) strongly opposes the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken the Global Plastics Treaty, reported this week by The Washington Post, including its opposition to limits on plastic production and its push to focus the treaty instead on waste management, recycling, and private-sector investment.
A meaningful Global Plastics Treaty must include measures to reduce plastic production.
The scale of the problem continues to grow. Global plastics production doubled from 234 million metric tons in 2000 to 460 million metric tons in 2019. And the impacts begin long before plastic becomes waste. The plastics lifecycle generated an estimated 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, with 90% coming from the production and conversion of fossil-fuel-based plastics.
Plastic production also drives fossil fuel extraction and exposes workers and communities to pollution and harmful chemicals. These impacts cannot be solved through better waste management alone.
As recyclers, we know firsthand that recycling is essential, but it cannot keep pace with ever-increasing plastic production. Continued growth in virgin plastic production also undermines recycling by flooding markets with new material that competes with the recovered materials recyclers work to return to manufacturing. Limiting plastics production can actually stimulate economic growth by increasing innovation and investment in recycling and reuse programs while protecting our environment and communities.
Throughout the treaty negotiations, AMBR has called for an agreement that addresses plastic pollution across its full lifecycle and follows the waste hierarchy: reduce plastic production, expand reuse, and strengthen real recycling systems for the materials that remain.
Investing in collection and recycling is necessary. But those investments cannot substitute for addressing the source of the problem. A treaty that allows plastic production to continue growing while focusing primarily on what happens after plastic becomes waste will leave communities managing an ever-growing stream of pollution.
The world has an opportunity to create a treaty that protects people and communities, reduces environmental and climate impacts, and meaningfully turns the tide on plastic pollution. That requires limits on plastic production.