"We Need a Global Plastics Treaty to Stop an Environmental Disaster - and truly global participation in the process will create more than just a Paris Agreement for plastics"

. What follows is a key point from article that we at OPLN want to be sure to stress:

"Whatever is decided at UNEA 5.2, stakeholders the world over will need a forum to talk to one another and build towards a quick implementation of plans. We should have open, multisectoral dialogues in every country, with recurring sessions while the treaty is being negotiated. The ideas and stakeholder mapping—or finding out what everyone wants out of a treaty—in these talks should feed global negotiations, ultimately informing treaty negotiations in a more dynamic and time-sensitive manner. To that end, OPLN has already begun convening Country Dialogues for the global plastic treaty in Chile, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ghana and the United States.

Consider the

 two billion people in the world, largely in developing nations, who do not have access to waste management collection services

 and are forced to illegally dump or burn their waste. Or the 

15 to 20 million people among them who make their living selling plastic scrap

 that they find on streets, beaches and dumps to secondary recycled plastic markets. Both groups are a vital part of the plastics equation, and their interests must be represented at the negotiating table.

As our initial country-specific forums have taken place, we’ve started to see the chaos of the plastic crisis become just a bit more tangible. Waste-pickers from Accra, Ghana have expressed their concerns to a CEO based in San Francisco. An activist working to protect their fenceline community from the emissions of a refinery next door spoke directly with an executive from the company that owned it. This simply hasn’t happened in previous global treaty processes.

So while the U.N. is gathered in Nairobi, discussing, among other things, what it will take to stem the flow of plastics waste, we want to urge national leaders to support dialogues accessible to everyone, to quickly expand the scope of who is at the negotiating table in this global agreement.

Participation will be the lifeblood of the solution, and an unpopular treaty is sure to stall. Let’s set ourselves up for every holder of every stake to get involved as soon as possible—because there is no time to waste."

Read OPLN's Op-Ed In Scientific American

In May 2023, the Ocean Plastic Leadership Network (OPLN) hosted a three-day technical exhibition of key elements of British Columbia (B.C.) and Oregon’s deposit return systems (DRS) and extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes for beverage containers. This three-day journey, from May 15th to 17th, brought together 30 participants representing major organizations across the beverage container value chain (from material producers, packaging converters, top beverage brands, retail, waste management and recyclers). The technical expedition aimed to foster collaboration, experiential learning, and advance policy development on National EPR & DRS among Fortune 500 sustainability leaders, policy makers, leading NGOs and government officials. This blog post will take you on a virtual tour of the expedition and highlight the key players and organizations that are actively working on circular solutions for beverage containers in the Pacific Northwest.

The Pacific N.W. Technical Expedition had three primary objectives:

to provide a platform for participants to witness the latest advancements in EPR and DRS systems on a global and North American scale.

to mobilize multi-stakeholder groups and encourage their collaboration in exploring paths to implementation and policy development.

Circular Economy and Sustainability-Driven Innovation 

to promote the principles of a circular economy and foster sustainability-driven innovation as essential tools to combat plastic pollution.

Container deposit return systems have been around for a long time, but they are still not available for the majority of American consumers.  DRS works by adding a deposit on top of the price of a beverage, which is refunded to the consumer when they return the empty bottle or can for recycling. Think of it as renting the beverage container. Container deposit systems are sometimes referred to as bottle bills because they are typically established through legislation passed by state or national governments.  EPR is a comparable scheme that is a little newer, at least in North American markets (Germany and much of Europe has been using EPR to fund recycling efforts since the ‘90s).  The idea is the same, producers of packaging, brands that sell packaged products and sometimes even retailers and distributors come together to fund and sometimes to operate recovery and recycling schemes to lift the burden from city governments and citizens.  Both schemes (DRS and EPR) have demonstrated impressive results in raising operational and capital budgets for recycling infrastructure, ensuring every community has access to recycling, keeping materials in circulation and out of the environment as litter, and providing low-barrier economic opportunities for marginalized groups, such as homeless communities.

The Pacific N.W. Technical Expedition brought together key value chain actors to see first-hand how these systems work, the metrics, data and costs of performance and to engage with one another around the potential opportunities for DRS for beverage containers and EPR for other packaging materials to be universally available for all citizens across the United States, and to begin to think about the impact that could have on our oceans, littered city streets, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, biodiversity loss and struggling community members that deserve a helping hand.

Join us for a virtual tour to share in the group’s learning and to celebrate the awesome work of the many organizations who hosted us.

(Return-it) the federally incorporated, not-for-profit, product stewardship corporation with beverage container management as their core business. Their mandate is to develop, manage and improve systems to recover used packaging and end-of-life products from consumers and ensure that they are properly recycled and not landfilled or incinerated. This model is commonly referred to as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) or Industry Product Stewardship (IPS). Return-it depots accept over 20 types of containers, ranging from your standard water bottle, to juice pouches, gable-top cartons, boxed wine, and just about everything in between.  In 2022, Encorp Pacific recovered 76.6% of all beverage containers put on the market in British Columbia.  99.2% of B.C.’s population have convenient access to one of Encorp’s more than 100 depots.

, an innovative NGO fostering social and economic inclusion within the circular economy by empowering binners (individuals who collect cans and bottles for income).  Their programs focused on creating a community from the bottom up, ensuring that everyone involved benefits from the circular economy.

They have been busy prototyping and testing a suite of radical innovations to improve binners’ working conditions and relationships to the communities that they serve. The project also operates a social enterprise program which provides income opportunities for binners to utilize their expertise in supporting waste diversion at businesses across Vancouver.


Day one of the tour closed with a keynote address over a farm-to-table dining experience with the 

Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. 

The Assistant Deputy Minister for the Environmental Protection Division, Laurel Nash, met the group to provide an overview of the overarching legal framework for extended producer responsibility (EPR) in British Columbia. They shed light on the 14 product categories regulated under the Recycling Regulation (with plans for more to be added, outlined in EPR’s Five-Year Action Plan) and the 21 approved EPR plans, highlighting the collaborative efforts involved in waste management and recycling.


 a not-for-profit organization responsible for residential 

 throughout British Columbia, servicing over two million households or over 99% of B.C. through curbside, multi-family and/or depot services. Recycle BC ensures packaging and paper products are collected from households and recycling depots, sorted and responsibly managed and recycled. Recycle BC provides recycling services either directly to communities or by working in partnership with local governments, First Nations, private companies, and other not-for-profit organizations. 194 communities participate in the curbside recycling collection program and more are serviced by recycling depots. In 2022 over 200,000 tonnes of material was collected from households and depots.  The program is 

, like retailers, manufacturers and restaurants that supply packaging and paper products to BC residents, shifting costs away from homeowners. Recycle BC was originally launched in 2014 as Multi-Material BC (MMBC).

, a leading recycler and processor of post-consumer and post-industrial plastic container packaging, who showcased their state-of-the-art container sortation plant and an adjoining processing (i.e. recycling) plant. The state-of-the-art container sortation plant, one of the largest on the West Coast, effectively sorts all manner of materials collected from curbside blue bins in British Columbia, from drink straws, yogurt tubs and take-out-food containers and just about any other packaging you can imagine. 

The processing plant recycles various post-consumer plastic packaging into food-grade recycled flake and pellet, highlighting the importance of plastic recycling and upcycling.

At this point in the tour participants buckled up for a five-hour bus drive over the border, down to Portland, Oregon for the second leg of the trip, taking in the awesome Cascades along the way. On the outskirts of Portland, the tour stopped to visit the 

, which primarily manufactures wine bottles but also produces larger format beer bottles using recycled cullet. 

The plant sources their recycled materials from both the OBRC bottle bill processing supply chain (i.e. material reclaimed through Oregon’s deposit-return system) and the Strategic Materials plant in Seattle (i.e. material reclaimed through single-stream curb-side programs). This integration of recycled materials emphasizes the O-I’s commitment to sustainability and the circular economy.

Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC)

serving as the industry steward of Oregon's beverage container redemption program and playing a vital role in keeping Oregon beautiful. In 2022, OBRC redeemed 88.5% of all eligible containers put on Oregon’s market through a system of over 100 BottleDrop Redemption Centers and bag drop locations, processing 164.8 million pounds of material and saving 51,337 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions, comparable to taking 10,900 passenger cars off the road.

After learning about OBRC’s impressive system and visiting several of its redemption centers, the tour continued with a visit to 

, a redemption operated by and for canners (people who informally collect cans and bottles for income), which is a program of Ground Score Association, with support from OBRC and the City of Portland.

 is a waste picker  association that creates low-barrier but formal waste management jobs for dumpster divers and other waste pickers, especially those  facing work and housing insecurity. By fostering community resilience and economic inclusion, The People’s Depot provides a welcoming place for canners and works to help society understand canning as important both economically and environmentally.

, a state-of-the-art recycling facility, specializes in transforming post-consumer PET bottles into clean PET flake or RPET (Recycled PET). With efficient sorting, granulation, and washing processes, ORPET produces high-quality recycled PET for various end-users. This facility, a joint venture between Merlin Plastics Supply Inc. and the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, showcases the importance of collaboration in sustainable recycling initiatives.

By visiting key organizations in British Columbia and Oregon, the participants gained firsthand knowledge of cutting-edge recycling technologies, sustainable practices, and collaborative initiatives. This immersive experience fostered collaboration, policy development, and a shared vision of achieving a circular economy and ending plastic pollution. Through continued efforts and multi-stakeholder engagement, the Pacific Northwest aims to set an example for the world in sustainable waste management and environmental conservation.

 is an activist-to-industry impact network founded in 2019. OPLN is bringing together voices across industry, activism, and government to convene and drive engagement on policy and intervention concerning the global plastic pollution crisis.Through neutral and inclusive convenings, expeditions, development tracks, treaty dialogues, stakeholder education, and communications campaigns, the OPLN bridges divides, measures sentiment, and accelerates collaboration.

is the largest privately held industrial packaging company in North America and a leader in sustainable packaging solutions.  Atlantic specializes in end-of-line packaging systems and materials as well as converted paperboard solutions. Atlantic’s focus on innovation and technology has made it a market leader for customers requiring sustainable packaging options, packaging equipment, high-performance materials, warehousing, and distribution.  A New Earth Project is Atlantic’s hallmark initiative to rid our oceans, lakes, and rivers of plastic pollution.

. is a one-stop shop for accelerating plastic recycling and creating value from plastic waste. We connect the dots between every step in the closed loop system: extended producer responsibility (EPR) management and services, collection and sorting systems, recycling facilities and connecting brands with quality recycled content to meet their goals. Our approach is founded on more than 30 years of experience, a passion for measurable change, and problem-solving to meet unique community needs. We connect brand partners with opportunities to meet commitments, serve communities and drive change at scale.

Pacific N.W. Technical Expedition: EPR + DRS Multi-Stakeholder Capacity Building

Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch overlooking the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England.

This is your Global Treaty Dialogues Report for 7/20

At the UN Ocean Conference in early July, the 

 (UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) announced our partnership for a series of dialogues that will bring together stakeholders from all parts of the plastic system.

For the UK Plastics Treaty Dialogues (UK PTDs), OPLN and Defra have identified 80 impact organizations across civil society, the value chain, industry, academia, ESG finance, waste management/recyclers, and more to shape a treaty that works for all stakeholders. This activist-to-industry network will assemble for six invitation-only meetings over the next two years in order to build capacity for the UK’s participation in the Global Plastics Treaty.

For maximum stakeholder impact, each UK PTD session is set to take place within a month of the next Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting. In this framework, all UK stakeholders will be able to communicate their positions directly to the experts representing them at the UN-level. The experts can then bring stakeholder insights to their UN colleagues while they negotiate what has been called “

the most significant environmental deal since the Paris accord

Quick facts: the Global Plastic Treaty’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC)

The INC for the Global Plastics Treaty is the body responsible for completing the draft text of the global, legally binding plastics treaty.

The INC was formed in March 2022, when UNEA 5.2 voted to start negotiations on the treaty. The text of the Resolution is available 

The INCs goal is to - over at least five sessions - build consensus from government representatives of UN Member States in order to complete this draft by the end of 2024. Once the draft is complete, the UN will hold a diplomatic conference to open it for signature.

With preparations nearly finished (see this 

 on the preparatory working group), the first meeting of the INC (INC-1) is set to take place in 

Just as the INC was formed, the UK announced support for the negotiations via Defra and the office of the International Environment Minister. On March 3rd, Lord Zac Goldsmith said:

“This agreement by governments at UNEA is truly historic, and I’m so proud that the UK co-sponsored the proposals and helped get them over the line. In the space of just one human lifetime, we have caused unimaginable damage to the global environment, choking every single part of the global ocean with plastic pollution. And although there is much to be done now to turn it into an ambitious and far-reaching treaty, we can now begin to close this ugly chapter. I am so grateful to UK negotiators for their fantastic work securing agreement this week.”

A view of Tobermory, the most northerly point on the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides

Defra is the lead Department for the plastics treaty negotiations and will negotiate for the UK in the INC process. Leading this effort is the Defra’s Marine Litter Policy team, headed by Julius Piercy.

Dr. Piercy has led the team since September 2019 and holds a PhD in Marine Biology. He and his team are working closely with OPLN on the UK Plastics Treaty Dialogues, helping represent national stakeholders' views to multilateral environmental negotiations at the highest level.

In conjunction with the five invitation-only sessions, OPLN will also design interactive learning primers with up-to-date curated insights into the treaty process and the evolution of solutions to the plastics crisis, both locally and globally.

News Digest - Plastic news in the UK over the past few weeks:

 launches 2nd Marine Litter Regional Action Plan at the United Nations Ocean conference in Lisbon. UK joined other North-East Atlantic states in an action plan that, among other solutions, tackles litter from rivers, phases out additional single-use plastic items, and reduces microplastic releases from shipping.

Global Plastics Action Partnership (GPAP)

 to be provided over the next three years, taking the total UK contribution to £15 million.

Earlier this month, cross-party MPs called for 

. It is estimated that 100 million such cups are used annually during music festivals and live sporting events, which are ‘rarely collected and processed for recycling’.

More announcements on the UK Plastics Treaty Dialogues are on the way. Check back in with OPLN Media soon for updates. 

An Early Look at the UK Plastics Treaty Dialogues

This is your Ocean Plastics Report for 6/2/2022

Pre-Negotiations for the Global Plastics Treaty Take Place in Dakar, Senegal

 open-ended working group (OEWG) to develop a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution got underway in Dakar, Senegal this week. According to an event organizer, 900 participants split between in person and online formats were reported to be in attendance.

The plan of work for this series of OEWG meetings was to focus on organizational issues for the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) that will handle negotiations. Topics included:

-The timeline of the negotiations and number of meetings

-How non-governmental stakeholders would participate

-Procedural concerns such as consensus, voting, and vetoes

What follows is a day-by-day breakdown of the proceedings.

Left to right: Siaka Coulibaly, Resident Coordinator; Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UNEP; Abdou Karim Sall, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Senegal; and Leticia Carvalho, UNEP.

On Day 1 of the meeting in Dakar attendees heard general statements touching on the timeline for the INC. When points were raised about how many meetings should take place, many attendees seemed to prefer a 5-meeting schedule.

Attendees also shared their priorities for the process, with many stressing the meaningful inclusion of a wide range of stakeholders, from the private sector to informal waste pickers.

Rokhaya Ndiaye Diop, Basel and Stockholm Conventions Regional Centre in Senegal.

Panels were held on the following topics:

Product and material innovation/product design

 - Archawat Chareonsilp, ETRAN, said regulatory pressure on the private sector will soon be amplified and directed to consumers, who will thus demand solutions to plastic waste. Members of plastic value chain were urged to get ahead of this trend.

 - Jodie Roussell, Nestlé, detailed the company's plans to ensure that none of its packaging ends up as litter or in landfills.

 - Rokhaya Ndiaye Diop, Basel and Stockholm Conventions Regional Centre in Senegal, promoted dual-involvement of the public and private sectors in waste management, alongside government entities.

Read more about May 29th proceedings at IISD/Earth News Bulletin 

Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UNEP, and Abdou Karim Sall, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Senegal, during a press event.

On Day 2 of the meeting in Dakar, participants began proposing rules of procedure for the future Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meetings. These rules will form the basis of how the negotiation meetings will operate.

Many of the procedural rules being discussed draw from the template of the INC for the 

, which became effective in August 2017. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has produced a comparison table to highlight similarities, differences, and issues of concern between the process followed to adopt the Minamata Convention and the suggested rules of procedures for the negotiations of a plastics treaty, available 

A Multi-Stakeholder meeting for this day was aimed to address concerns related to informal waste pickers/workers. Topics included:

Including informal waste workers in decision-making processes related to plastic pollution

Creating decent work opportunities for waste workers which ensure social protections

Establishing platforms for informal waste workers to engage with policymakers

Read more about May 30th proceedings at IISD/Earth News Bulletin 

The dais at the end of the June 1st meeting 

Robert Bunbury, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for Canada, reported that the informal working group addressing the rules of procedure for the INC had met into the night on Tuesday, reaching agreement on most of the rules at 1:00 am on Wednesday. (

Note: OPLN will follow up soon with a report on the rules of procedure)

Soon after, it was established that the first Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-1) will take place in Uruguay in November 2022

Finally, delegates further discussed the organization of the multi-stakeholder forum for the exchange of information and activities related to plastic pollution, in order to inform INC-1. They agreed to submit additional comments and suggestions to the Secretariat by the end of June 2022.

The topic of the day's Multi-Stakeholder meeting was 

“Upscaling and redirecting finance, incentives and trade.”

The roles of banks in mitigating planetary challenges through financing solutions

Managing risks and opportunities for stakeholders

How trade policy can effect systems change

The airline industry's push to replace single-use plastics

Read more about the June 1st proceedings at IISD/Earth News Bulletin 

WWF Calls for "Start-Then-Strengthen" Approach to Treaty

, WWF has called for an approach to the global plastics treaty that addresses the most urgent issues and implements measures quickly, while also preparing mechanisms for States and other parties to discuss and further measures. WWF asserts that this method will improve the effectiveness of the treaty over time.

"The OEWG should acknowledge this complexity in their consideration for the INC’s organization of work, especially given the ambition for the INC to complete its work by the end of 2024.

This acknowledgement will help to facilitate discussions on prioritization of negotiation tasks and ensure that the most problematic pollution issues and the most impactful actions are at the top of the agenda. This way, the treaty’s ambition can avoid compromises in the face of both its subject matter’s complexity and the negotiation time frame."

Additionally, WWF's brief lays out three key ideas for promoting participation and compliance by Member States:

1. There should be a process where the treaty enters into force as an instrument of international law when a certain number of States consent to being bound by the treaty through signature and ratification or accession.

 "the entry-into-force threshold will serve as a tipping point: once a certain number of States have joined, it will be increasingly disadvantageous to remain outside the regime.

2. The treaty must provide States with strong incentives to join — meaning 

the cost of joining the treaty and complying with the common standard of action must be lower than the cost of not doing so

. The compliance system will likely be part of the treaty itself, for instance in the form of trade restrictions or certification procedures.

3. Accountability must also be coupled with implementation support. It is essential that a just transition is ensured through both cost-effective control measures and sufficient technical and financial assistance where necessary.

Resources should be distributed in a way that maximizes cost-efficiency and supports developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their efforts to implement their obligations.

Read OPLN's Op-Ed In Scientific American

"We Need a Global Plastics Treaty to Stop an Environmental Disaster - and truly global participation in the process will create more than just a Paris Agreement for plastics"

- Dave Ford, Founder of OPLN

Other news