Margaret Spring is the chief conservation and science officer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California. Ms. Spring, at a briefing attended by United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU, discusses plastic pollution and efforts to curb it. Excerpts:
Increase in plastic production
Between 1950 and 2019, global plastic production has ballooned from an estimated 2.2 million tons per year to 460 million – metric tons per year – excuse me – million tons per year. And if industry has their way, it’ll be more like 1.5 billion by 2050, and estimates are that there’ll be a tripling of plastic use by 2060, according to the OECD.
One thing you should know is that almost all plastic right now is made from fossil-based petrochemical feedstocks, oil, and natural gas. If people curb their demand for fossil fuel energy as a result of responding to the climate crisis, the industry is really looking to plastic to keep their profits afloat. Plastic production leads to plastic waste and inevitably plastic pollution. We can work on fixing waste management, which right now isn’t able to handle the volume of plastic waste, even in the U.S. But if we don’t slow plastic production, we can’t expect to keep up.
And we have an updated number for plastic waste that goes into the ocean, which is something of great concern to the aquarium – which is still an estimate; it’s based on modeling. But we’ve been using a conservative estimate of 9 million tons per year, and now it’s up to 12 million, and it’s just going to keep growing. So this is a problem that every minute that ticks away it gets worse.
An ocean problem
So it’s an ocean problem, of course. Plastic waste is present in almost every marine habitat on Earth, from the ocean surface to deep-sea sediments to the ocean’s vast midwater region. It’s just not at the surface. It’s everywhere, including on the bottom, and there’s new scientific information coming out, including from the aquarium on that point. Sea turtles, marine mammals, seabirds, fish, and other marine life are impacted by plastic by becoming entangled in it or eating it, and there’s a large body of evidence that ingested plastic travels through the food web and ultimately to humans.
But of course, it’s becoming clearer that plastic pollution is also an issue of environmental equity. Low-income communities and communities of color in the U.S. and around the world bear the brunt of plastic pollution from production, waste disposal, use, and incineration. Plastic pollution also disproportionally impacts people in poorer in countries, communities in the United States, where more plastic waste leaks out into the environment due to insufficient waste collection and management systems, which exacerbates the impacts of climate and other major crises around the world.
Sources of plastic
Most plastic is from fossil sources, as I said, and this has impact not only the environment from extraction all the way through the life cycle of plastic, but on society and the costs that are associated with that – the cleanup cost but also the health cost. And then the climate impacts, there’s growing evidence that the production of plastic is increasing the greenhouse gas emissions and, of course, that climate impacts are exacerbating the impacts of plastic in these countries that are affected by sea-level rise and other challenges. And of course, the economy is not going to be able to withstand this. The cost of cleaning up for governments and for prevention is going to increase the longer we wait.
So it’s everyone’s problem, which is why there is a treaty discussion going on right now. We basically have to start from the beginning to the end, and there’s a couple of studies that I was involved in that will elucidate this. Human health and equity, as I said before, is a major issue. Human health hazards are now taking center stage. There have been a number of reports on that, which I’ll talk about. And there’s really a lot more scrutiny on toxic chemicals within plastic that is coming to the fore.
Impacts on America
And just to center ourselves where we are, the United States is a part of this problem. It produces plastic. We actually generate a lot of waste – probably the most plastic waste. We actually have probably a more advanced waste management system, but in the end there is still leakage into the environment, which is of concern, and our recycling and disposal infrastructure is not going to be able to bear this. And of course, we do export waste too and that has changed a little bit because of some changes in China, but essentially we still – there’s just too much for us to manage at this point.
So in 2022 and 2023, I was involved in two expert reports. So one was at the U.S. scale and one was at the global scale, which it will explain how we are approaching the treaty. In December 2021, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report on the U.S. role in the global ocean plastic waste crisis, and it was requested by Congress in legislation established in 2020. I chaired the committee that came out with this report, and it’s made up of experts from all sorts of disciplines. We spent a year and a half researching this. What our conclusion was – oops, sorry. Well, this is one of our conclusions that the U.S. plays a significant role. Just so you know, it came from that report. I’m having trouble here, Leah. Okay.
Our top – there was – we found there was no one solution. Everyone was looking for one solution. Everyone sees the plastic problem from their perspective. If you’re a fisherman, you think that we need to clean it up. If you see it in your neighborhood, you want to have a – have this dealt with and you’re concerned about use of plastic products that are leaching chemicals and what the impacts on your children, you’re going to see it in a different part of this. But our finding was that there’s no one solution. Action needs to be made at every stage of the plastic life cycle from production all the way through disposal or leakage into the ocean, which is the ultimate sink for all of this plastic.
Recommendations
Our recommendation was as the U.S. as a key player needed to come up with a systemic federal policy and research strategy quickly. And so just – and we need to have to address the front end of the problem, which is that’s circled. What we found was that there was more action at the far end, which was the cleanup which is, of course, the natural reaction, and then we needed look farther up the chain. We identified also waste reduction as a critical policy, and part of those – and also reduction of plastic products and plastic production.
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After that – one of the things that this report did not do was look at actual health impacts. And so we – I also was a member of the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, which was chaired by Phil Landrigan, a pediatrician, and a number of doctors and health exports were part of it. And the major finding of that report, which was geared towards the UN treaty, was to look at what was the impact of plastics on human health across the life cycle.
Global actions
Taking a step back, in 2022, 175 countries adopted a resolution at the UN Environment Assembly, UNEA, and just after released the U.S. report and before we issued the Minderoo report. The nations agreed to negotiate this binding agreement, which is very exciting, to end plastic pollution, setting a goal of completing the text by the end of this year.
And so when we entered the space of the treaty, I’ve been at all of the meetings so far representing the scientific community through the International Science Council, and we – what was brought to the attention of the negotiators at that first meeting, their findings of the Minderoo-Monaco Commission Report, which were plastic harms human health and the environment; plastic itself causes disease, impairment, and premature mortality at every stage of its life cycle; toxic chemicals added to plastic, routinely detected in people, increases the risk of miscarriage, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancers; and health repercussions disproportionately affect vulnerable, low-income, minority communities, particularly children; and the annual costs are astounding. And I won’t go too far into that, but you can read the report. Also, plastic production has fueled climate change, so that is another issue of concern in that report.
And so the solutions offered were to address plastic production, establish health protective standards, improve production practices, improve the recycling and other mechanism, have regulations on hazardous chemicals, and prioritize the protection of human health and the environment, especially the protection of vulnerable and at-risk people. So at this treaty, all those issues are on the table. Primary plastic polymers are part of an – a zero draft of the text. Chemicals and polymers of concern, problematic and avoidable plastics, product design – all of those elements are in the framework for a treaty.
The Nairobi meeting
At our last meeting in Nairobi, there was a delay in taking action to further develop the text. The text was made longer, and so much – a bit more complicated. So looking ahead at our next meeting, which is kicking off on April 22nd – we’ll be welcomed by the Canadian Government on Earth Day, and then the negotiations start on the 23rd – there’ll be a lot of attention to the text and trying to get to agreement, because we have that meeting and then one more meeting.
And all of these issues are critically important. The question that will be ahead of us is what can we come to agreement with – on within this time period to be sure we address the whole life cycle of plastic, to address human health and the environment, and make sure the marine environment is protected, and also have a just transition and have enough financing to get this done. So – and there’s a lot of need for data transparency, tracking, and monitoring.
So those are all issues on the table, and there’s a lot of attention being paid to preparing for country positions, and all of us in the civil society and as observers are doing the same. And so we’re looking forward to seeing how far we can get in this meeting. And the last meeting will be in Seoul, Korea in the fall, and then ideally the treaty would be signed at an event, the plenipotentiaries meeting next year in 2025.
So that’s probably the fastest international treaty agreement timeline I’ve even seen, and so we’re all mobilizing quickly. So I just wanted to give you a sense of how important this issue is to people here in the United States as well as around the world. I’ve spoken to many people, and as a representative of the International Science Council we have given presentations to many delegations at this treaty and to answer questions about science, which is so critical.
The delay in Nairobi
I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes and among the delegates, but what occurred was that there was expressed a concern by a group of countries saying that they felt that their views were not reflected in the text that was shared and developed by the secretariat of the treaty. And so each of them had to – brought up a lot of questions about what was in there, and so there was a lot of time spent adding more text and options to each part of the treaty. So while it started as a – maybe a 30-page document, it’s now a 70-page document, which makes it a bit more complex. It’s – and so there is – that’s one reason.
But also there was not agreement on doing – on performing intercessional work. Many of the scientific groups and other delegates, who were very concerned that they needed to understand the issues better wanted to proceed with intercessional work, which means special, topical work that would go between that meeting and this coming meeting to help tee up some issues in an official way as part of the official process, and no agreement was made. So that has left us a little bit behind in developing the information that the delegates need to make decisions.
And so that doesn’t mean work isn’t going on, but it’s not going on in the same way that had been anticipated. And there were contact groups created that were developing those lists of topics that people wanted to understand, like polymers of concern, or problematic plastics, or financing. All those issues are all being discussed among observers as well as some of – and the delegations, but not as an official stream of work. So that will put – that’s delaying things a bit.
