Landmark plastic waste pact doesn't include US

Landmark plastic waste pact doesn't include US

UN hails 186-country agreement expected to put dent in one of the world's most serious pollution problems

Fishing boats are seen at a beach covered with plastic waste in Thanh Hoa province of Vietnam. (Reuters Photo)
Fishing boats are seen at a beach covered with plastic waste in Thanh Hoa province of Vietnam. (Reuters Photo)

GENEVA: Nearly every country in the world except for the United States has agreed on a legally binding framework to reduce the pollution from plastic waste, UN environmental officials say.

An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged on Friday at the end of a two-week meeting of signatories to the UN-backed Basel Convention on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals.

Discarded plastic clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and rivers and entangles wildlife, sometimes with deadly results.

Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.

Since China stopped accepting recycling from the US, activists say they have observed plastic waste piling up in developing countries. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia), a backer of the deal, says it found villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia that had “turned into dumpsites over the course of a year”.

Rolph Payet of the UN Environment Program said the “historic” agreement linked to the 186-country Basel Convention means that countries will have to monitor and track the movements of plastic waste outside their borders.

The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as health care, technology, aerospace, fashion, food and beverages.

“It’s sending a very strong political signal to the rest of the world — to the private sector, to the consumer market — that we need to do something,” Payet said. “Countries have decided to do something which will translate into real action on the ground.”

Countries will have to figure out their own ways of adhering to the accord, he said. Even the few countries that did not sign it, like the United States, could be affected when they ship plastic waste to countries that have ratified the deal.

It is not clear why the US has not ratified the agreement, although the Trump administration has been an outspoken opponent of numerous UN programmes that it believes work against the interests of the United States.

Payet credited Norway with leading the initiative, which first was presented in September. The time from that proposal to the approval of a deal set a blistering pace by the traditional UN standards for such an accord.

The framework “is historic in the sense that it is legally binding,” Payet said. “They (the countries) have managed to use an existing international instrument to put in place those measures.”

The agreement is likely to lead to customs agents being on the lookout for electronic waste or other types of potentially hazardous waste more than before.

“There is going to be a transparent and traceable system for the export and import of plastic waste,” Payet said.

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