The fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC5) to develop a global legally binding treaty on plastic pollution occurred in Busan, South Korea, from November 25 to December 1, 2024. The negotiations were exciting, as they aimed to lay the foundation for a binding agreement to combat the plastic crisis. However, countries could not adopt the text of the treaty in Busan due to key areas of disagreement, including capping plastic production, managing plastic products and chemicals of concern, financing to assist developing countries in implementing the treaty, and decision-making processes based on consensus or voting. It was decided to hold another meeting at some point in 2025 to attempt to agree on these crucial elements of the future treaty.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) were in force, advocating for a treaty prioritizing environmental protection, human health, and equity. HEJSupport was on site as part of the civil society delegation and critically assessed the negotiations and the results, particularly regarding the transparency and traceability of chemicals in plastic products. While some progress was achieved, NGOs remain very concerned about significant gaps in ambition and enforcement mechanisms.
Key Outcomes: missed opportunities, little progress
Ambitious Targets for Plastic Production Reduction
At INC 5, the need for binding reduction targets for virgin plastic production was supported by more than 100 countries. NGOs highlighted that tackling plastic pollution at its source is essential for addressing both environmental degradation and climate change. Despite vocal support from many nations, no consensus was reached on specific targets or timelines. Oil-producing nations and their allies, heavily influenced by industry lobbyists, opposed such targets, focusing instead on waste management and recycling solutions. This reluctance to tackle upstream drivers of plastic pollution leaves a major gap in the treaty’s potential to address the root causes of the crisis.
Procedural Barriers
The negotiations also revealed significant procedural challenges. Many parts of the discussions were closed to civil society, limiting transparency and sidelining critical voices advocating for people’s health and the environment. This situation contradicted traditional NGO participation in the negotiations of the chemical conventions and the Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC) when civil society representatives took part in developing the agreements’ texts and later implementing them.
Additionally, the absence of a voting mechanism allowed a small group of powerful nations to block progress at INC5, undermining the democratic nature of the negotiations and frustrating countries seeking more ambitious action.
NGO Concerns: Inequity and failure
NGOs expressed deep frustration over the lack of meaningful action on key issues, particularly:
- Limited Transparency in Negotiations: Civil society’s exclusion from key discussions weakened public trust and reduced accountability. Closed-door sessions practiced at INC5 also limited the opportunity for affected communities and indigenous groups to contribute meaningfully. Moreover, when civil society representatives are excluded from global negotiations, it can undermine their credibility and influence at the national level. They may be seen as lacking the necessary expertise or legitimacy, making it harder for them to be taken seriously by national governments, thereby reducing their ability to influence national policies and decisions related to plastic pollution.
- Voluntary Measures over Binding Commitments: Relying on voluntary approaches and favouring national measures over global binding action undermines the treaty’s effectiveness. Unfortunately, at INC5 many countries emphasized national measures, priorities and capacities. Plastic pollution is a global issue that crosses national borders. National activities alone can lead to fragmented efforts, making it difficult to achieve a cohesive and comprehensive solution. The existing multilateral environmental agreements proved the importance of prioritizing global legally binding requirements over national standards. Global agreements ensure that all countries work towards the same goals, creating a unified approach to tackling environmental issues. This is crucial for problems like plastic pollution, which are inherently global and require coordinated efforts. Without global requirements, countries may adopt varying standards and regulations, leading to inconsistencies that can complicate international trade and cooperation. This can also create loopholes that undermine overall efforts to reduce plastic pollution. Balancing global commitments with national priorities is a common theme in international negotiations. It ensures that while there are unified global provisions, individual countries can tailor their actions to their specific contexts and capacities. This approach can help achieve broader buy-in and more effective implementation of the plastic treaty.
- Failure to Address Root Causes: The focus on downstream solutions, such as waste management and recycling, rather than upstream interventions, like reducing virgin plastic production, represents a missed opportunity to tackle the plastic crisis at its source. Unfortunately, during the negotiations, oil-producing countries strongly opposed reducing plastic production while highlighting waste management as the key priority of the treaty. In their interventions, they emphasized the need to address pollution caused by plastic waste rather than by plastic production.
Progress: Transparency and traceability of chemicals in plastic products are in the draft treaty text
One positive outcome of INC5 is that the issue of providing information on chemicals used in plastic products along the value chains and ensuring the traceability of such information in plastic products and waste, based on globally harmonized guidelines, was officially included in the negotiating text[1]. The inclusion of transparency resulted from many interventions, including from Africa, Latin America, the EU, Australia, and small island developing states (SIDS), insisting that disclosing the chemical composition of plastic products must be a central part of the agreement. They noted that transparency was crucial for enabling consumers, policymakers, waste handlers, and industry to make informed decisions about plastic products’ production, use, and disposal
Olga Speranskaya from HEJSupport explains:
“Recognizing transparency as a key factor is an important achievement. Without comprehensive information on the chemicals in plastics, the protection of health and the environment remains inadequate. Particularly hazardous substances, often ‘hidden’ in plastics, can finally be identified and regulated. Transparency of such information should go hand in hand with its traceability in individual plastic materials and products to ensure informed decision-making within the entire plastic lifecycle. Ensuring chemical identity and traceability in plastic products is essential for many of the envisioned control measures and for achieving the treaty’s goals.”
Progress: Criteria for problematic products are identified
One more positive outcome of the negotiations in Busan was the list of criteria for problematic plastic products that should not be allowed for manufacturing, import, or export. Such products, among other things, may contain hazardous chemicals that pose risks to human health or the environment.
Moreover, the draft text now includes annex Y, which lists the products to be phased out. The annex also includes toys, children’s products, and food-contact material containing several phthalates, heavy metals, and bisphenol A.
While the lists of products[2] and toxic chemicals[3] in the products to be banned are very limited, they are a good start, leading to the list of other toxic chemicals and plastic products later on at the Conferences of Parties to the treaty.
Summary and demands of HEJSupport
Despite the progress in transparency and traceability of chemicals in plastics, the decisive text still needs to be adopted. Several countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other “like-minded” member states are preventing the inclusion of chemicals in the agreement and blocking binding measures.
They insist on addressing waste management solely under the treaty and disagree with the position of more than 100 countries to reduce plastic production and establish control measures over toxic chemicals in plastic. During various discussions, the “like-minded” countries highlighted no problem with producing plastics, saying that the treaty should end plastic pollution rather than plastic production.
Their position does not consider well-known data showing that plastic production is projected to triple by 2050, and microplastics have been detected in the air, across the food chain, and throughout the human body.
Moreover, “like-minded” states do not consider the data in the UNEP 2023 report, which identified over 3,200 chemicals of concern in plastics and highlighted that women and children are particularly vulnerable to their toxic effects. These countries believe the plastic treaty should not control chemicals because the existing chemical conventions already regulate them. However, these conventions regulate less than 4% of chemicals used in plastics and do not consider phthalates or bisphenols, which are very common and can be found in many plastic products.
In addition, “like-minded” states question microplastic toxicity, saying there is no scientifically proven data to confirm its threat to human health.
HEJSupport recognizes that INC5 has taken important steps to bring transparency and traceability of chemicals in products into the discussion on plastic pollution. However, this progress is insufficient to bring about the urgently needed changes in plastic production and use. In particular, the resistance to binding mechanisms on chemicals shows how strongly economic interests continue to block the protection of health and the environment.
Alexandra Caterbow from HEJSupport concludes:
“The negotiations in Busan have shown that transparency and traceability of chemicals are still of secondary importance to many stakeholders. We call on the international community to adopt clear and binding requirements for chemical information transparency and traceability and ensure its availability in a publicly accessible database on chemicals in plastics in the next round of negotiations. This is the only way to achieve a truly sustainable plastics agreement.”
As negotiations continue, HEJSupport has outlined the following key priorities for the next rounds:
- Mandatory Transparency and Traceability: Binding globally harmonized requirements should be adopted to make information about chemicals in plastics transparent and traceable in individual plastic materials and products throughout the value chains, prioritizing chemicals of concern.
- Mandatory public access to information on chemicals in plastic: Binding requirements should be agreed upon to make information about chemicals in plastics publicly accessible and available via a global database.
- Reduction Targets for Virgin Plastics: Ambitious and enforceable global targets to curb the production of virgin plastics, aligned with climate goals and sustainable development, will help conserve non-renewable resources like oil and natural gas. They will also ensure that all countries work towards the same objectives, creating a level playing field and preventing any single country from becoming a pollution haven due to lax regulations.
- Regulation of Toxic Chemicals: A comprehensive ban on hazardous chemicals in plastics, with clear timelines for implementation. The draft Plastic treaty text prepared at INC5 already includes an initial list of chemicals to be banned from toys, children’s products, and food-contact materials. While the list is limited in both the number of chemicals and the number of sectors/products, it opens the door for further extension during the coming Conferences of Parties to the treaty.
- Voting instead of consensus: If consensus cannot be reached, voting should be allowed on all elements of the treaty. Achieving consensus among all parties can be difficult, especially when conflicting interests exist. This can lead to delays or the inability to make timely decisions. The Rotterdam convention on the prior informed consent procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade has already proven less effective because it relies solely on consensus decision-making.
- Support for vulnerable groups such as women, frontline communities, and Indigenous groups: Strong provisions on emissions and releases throughout the entire plastic lifecycle, as well as on health and chemicals, are needed to ensure communities in vulnerable situations have the right to know about toxic emissions and releases and the right to health and healthy environment.
- Mechanism for sustainable and stable financing: To address plastic pollution and transition to sustainable systems, adequate financial and technical assistance should be provided to developing countries and most affected groups, based on the polluter pays principle.
- Accountability Mechanisms: Strong enforcement provisions, including monitoring and reporting obligations, should be established to ensure treaty compliance. Monitoring and reporting obligations create transparency, allowing for the tracking of progress and identification of areas for improvement. This accountability helps build trust among parties and ensures that everyone is contributing their fair share to the global effort.
Conclusion
INC5 highlighted the growing consensus among most countries on the need for a global plastics treaty but exposed deep divisions over how to achieve it. NGOs stressed that addressing plastic pollution requires transformative action, not incremental changes. The next negotiation session will be critical for turning recognition into action and ensuring that the treaty becomes a meaningful tool for environmental and social justice.
HEJSupport will continue to advocate for a treaty that addresses the plastics crisis at its root, prioritizes human and environmental health, and leaves no community behind. We monitor developments critically and advocate for a strong agreement prioritizing people’s health and the environment.
[1] Article 3 on Plastic products, par. 8 bis: [Each Party shall require producers, importers and exporters of plastic products to ensure adequate and reliable information on chemicals used in plastic products along the various value chains, and take appropriate measures to ensure the traceability of chemicals, including in plastic products and wastes, based on globally harmonized guidelines to be adopted by the Conference of parties at its [second] meeting.”]
[2] -Single use plastic sticks to be attached to and to support balloons
– Single use plastic straws
– Single use plastic beverage stirrers
– Single use plastic cutlery/ utensils (forks, knives, spoons, chopsticks)
– Single use plastic-stemmed cotton bud sticks
– Single use plastic carrier bags
– Rinse-off cosmetics and personal care products containing intentionally added
microbeads
[3] -DEHP (CAS number 117-81-7)
– DBP (CAS number 84-74-2)
– BBP (CAS number 85-68-7)
– DIBP (CAS number 84-69-5)
– Lead and lead compounds
– Cadmium and cadmium compounds
– BPA (CAS number 80-05-7)
