Negotiations towards a global plastic treaty adjourned in Busan last week without delivering an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. The introduction of ambitious caps to the volume of plastic that companies are able to produce proved to be a most contentious battle among delegates. In public statements, the oil-producing nations of Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, and Iran have sought to block the proposed caps, insisting that the plastic treaty should only regulate waste management. The resulting stalemate leaves global plastic production and microplastic leakage virtually unchecked in international law.
In the Philippines, Australia, and the wider Indo-Pacific region, increases in dietary microplastics leave significant impacts on communities with high seafood consumption. Microplastics are plastic fibres, fragments, and granules of less than 5 millimetres that seep into waterways leading to the ocean, and eventually, permeate food chains.
But microplastics are only one facet to a problem of oceanic proportions.
Marine plastic pollution
Plastic debris harms marine wildlife and contributes to biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. In the Indo-Pacific, the Philippines and Australia are major producers of marine plastic pollution – a problem that has given rise to different policy responses from both nations.
In 2021, the Philippines led the world in dumping plastic waste into the ocean. This includes sachets, shopping bags, and translucent (labo) bags. Based on 2023 figures, every Filipino introduces 3.3 kilograms of plastic waste into the ocean, which translates to 350,000 tonnes of marine plastic waste a year. This figure represents 36% of the global total. If left unmanaged, plastic waste from Philippine sources is projected to accumulate to 9 million metric tonnes by 2040 and 11 million metric tonnes by 2060.
Between 2018 and 2019, Australia generated 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste, around 1 million tonnes of which was single use plastic. Of this, only around 13% was recycled. Approximately three quarters of debris on Australian coastlines is plastic and that most of this is from Australian sources. Marine plastics have a devastating effect on marine ecosystems and human health. In spite of this, government policies have proven ineffective at tackling this issue.
Policy responses
Both the Philippines and Australia are taking measures to reduce marine plastic pollution. In 2022, the Philippines passed the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act, which makes it mandatory for “producers to be environmentally responsible throughout the life cycle of a product, especially its post-consumer or end-of-life stage”. The law sets progressive plastic waste recovery targets from 40% by the end of 2024 to 80% by 2028 and beyond.
Similarly, Australia’s CSIRO has set a goal to reduce 80% of new plastic waste by 2030 by changing consumer behaviours and packaging and waste processing systems.
These measures are encouraging, but they do not go far enough in addressing legacy plastic pollution that has been dumped into the ocean for decades. Legacy pollution includes degraded microplastics that, when eaten by fish that are later caught and sold as seafood, could pose significant harm to human health.
Agreements do not address the plastic pollution that is currently circulating in the marine environment, or that which will be added in the years that it takes to formalise a global agreement.
At the international level, the Osaka Blue Ocean Vision commits G20 countries to reduce additional marine plastic pollution to zero by 2050 with a comprehensive lifecycle approach that targets plastic pollution from source to end-of-use. The initiative aims to reduce to net zero the volume of plastic entering the ocean by 2050. However, it is unclear whether and how caps to plastic production fit within a lifecycle approach to plastics.
Too little, too late
Net zero targets are prompting producers and policy makers to consider new ways of dealing with plastic pollution. However, these agreements do not address the plastic pollution that is currently circulating in the marine environment, or that which will be added in the years that it takes to formalise a global agreement. It is estimated that almost 15 million tonnes of plastic enter the marine environment every year, and this figure is set to triple by 2040. Despite government initiatives to curb marine plastic pollution, the use of single-use plastic is increasing at a steady rate.
While the Philippines and Australia have taken different approaches to marine plastic pollution, national responses from both identify time-based targets that seek to address the problem in phases leading to some future date. Setting plastic reduction targets for the future is, in some ways, low-hanging legislative fruit and can be seen as delaying meaningful action against marine plastic pollution in the present. Meanwhile, institutional approaches on the global scale tend to take a similar approach to the broader question of pollution.
A global response to a global issue
The failure of the Busan negotiations to conclude a global plastic treaty presents national governments with broad opportunities to respond innovatively to the problem of plastic pollution. Thus far, the Philippine and Australian responses have taken a waste management approach to plastic pollution which does not go far in slowing down the unbridled production of the polluting material.
While treaty negotiations broke down over the debate between plastic bans and waste management, national governments can take both approaches in their legislation and policies. As the Indo-Pacific region faces the devastating impacts of microplastics on the health of local populations, the ambitions of Philippine and Australian plastic law and policy should not be held back by the deadlocked treaty negotiations.
This article is part of the Blue Security project led by La Trobe Asia, University of Western Australia Defence and Security Institute, Griffith Asia Institute, United States Studies Centre, UNSW Canberra and the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue (AP4D). Views expressed are solely of its author/s and not representative of the Maritime Exchange, the Australian government, or the collaboration partner country government.
