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Everything you need to know for the fourth round of global plastic pollution treaty talks

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Monday, April 8, 2024

The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international, legally binding plastic pollution treaty will take place from April 23 to April 29 in Ottawa, Canada.In the first three sessions of treaty talks, negotiators from about 175 countries — along with industry representatives, environmentalists and others — met to advance a treaty to address global plastic pollution. What’s at stake in the plastic treaty talks? The plastic crisis is threatening both the planet and human and wildlife health. Global plastic waste is set to almost triple by 2060.The world generates roughly 400 million tons of plastic waste each year.Less than 10% of plastic ever made has been recycled. The treaty is the first international attempt to address this. What’s the state of the plastic treaty? Consensus was elusive at the last round of talks in Kenya. There is a High Ambition Coalition of countries that wants an end to plastic pollution by 2040. There is also a Global Coalition for Plastics Sustainability — largely nations economically reliant on fossil fuels such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Cuba, China and Bahrain — that has positioned itself as the counterbalance to the High Ambition Coalition and is pushing for a larger focus on addressing plastic waste (via chemical and mechanical recycling and other means) rather than plastic bans or production limits. The U.S. is not part of either. Some sticking points include: Regulating the chemicals in plastic productionPlastic production capsThe role of chemical recycling and bioplastics Where can I learn more about the plastic treaty?You can see all of the details of the upcoming treaty meeting at the UN Environment Programme website. Want to learn more broadly about the treaty and how plastic pollution impacts our health? Our newsroom has been hard at work on exploring these issues. Below we have articles to help you understand the treaty process and progress, plastic impacts to our health and chemical recycling and bioplastics.And follow our newsroom on X, Instagram or Facebook to stay up-to-date on this historic treaty.Plastic treaty coverage “Plastic will overwhelm us:” Scientists say health should be the core of global plastic treaty Opinion: Pete Myers discusses the "Health Scientists' Global Plastic Treaty" Plastics treaty draft underway, but will the most impacted countries be included? Opinion: UN plastics treaty should prioritize health and climate change Op-Ed: How the United Nations could avoid silencing voices during Plastic Treaty negotiations Scientists: US needs to support a strong global agreement to curb plastic pollutionPlastic and our healthWhat is plastic pollution? Plastic chemicals are more numerable and less regulated than previously thought Recycling plastics “extremely problematic” due to toxic chemical additives Every stage of plastic production and use is harming human health Massive new database on how plastic chemicals harm our healthChemical recycling and bioplasticsWhat is chemical recycling? Bioplastics: sustainable solution or distraction from the plastic waste crisis? Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts This will be a big year in shaping the future of chemical recycling Chemical recycling “a dangerous deception” for solving plastic pollution: Report Paused Ohio chemical recycling plant puts spotlight on Appalachia as “prime target” for the controversial practice Residents fear Pennsylvania, West Virginia chemical recycling proposals will deepen fossil fuel ties and pollution problems Q&A: Director of sustainability at Eastman Chemical Company talks chemical recyclingLatest chemical recycling plant closing spurs concern over the industry’s viability

The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international, legally binding plastic pollution treaty will take place from April 23 to April 29 in Ottawa, Canada.In the first three sessions of treaty talks, negotiators from about 175 countries — along with industry representatives, environmentalists and others — met to advance a treaty to address global plastic pollution. What’s at stake in the plastic treaty talks? The plastic crisis is threatening both the planet and human and wildlife health. Global plastic waste is set to almost triple by 2060.The world generates roughly 400 million tons of plastic waste each year.Less than 10% of plastic ever made has been recycled. The treaty is the first international attempt to address this. What’s the state of the plastic treaty? Consensus was elusive at the last round of talks in Kenya. There is a High Ambition Coalition of countries that wants an end to plastic pollution by 2040. There is also a Global Coalition for Plastics Sustainability — largely nations economically reliant on fossil fuels such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Cuba, China and Bahrain — that has positioned itself as the counterbalance to the High Ambition Coalition and is pushing for a larger focus on addressing plastic waste (via chemical and mechanical recycling and other means) rather than plastic bans or production limits. The U.S. is not part of either. Some sticking points include: Regulating the chemicals in plastic productionPlastic production capsThe role of chemical recycling and bioplastics Where can I learn more about the plastic treaty?You can see all of the details of the upcoming treaty meeting at the UN Environment Programme website. Want to learn more broadly about the treaty and how plastic pollution impacts our health? Our newsroom has been hard at work on exploring these issues. Below we have articles to help you understand the treaty process and progress, plastic impacts to our health and chemical recycling and bioplastics.And follow our newsroom on X, Instagram or Facebook to stay up-to-date on this historic treaty.Plastic treaty coverage “Plastic will overwhelm us:” Scientists say health should be the core of global plastic treaty Opinion: Pete Myers discusses the "Health Scientists' Global Plastic Treaty" Plastics treaty draft underway, but will the most impacted countries be included? Opinion: UN plastics treaty should prioritize health and climate change Op-Ed: How the United Nations could avoid silencing voices during Plastic Treaty negotiations Scientists: US needs to support a strong global agreement to curb plastic pollutionPlastic and our healthWhat is plastic pollution? Plastic chemicals are more numerable and less regulated than previously thought Recycling plastics “extremely problematic” due to toxic chemical additives Every stage of plastic production and use is harming human health Massive new database on how plastic chemicals harm our healthChemical recycling and bioplasticsWhat is chemical recycling? Bioplastics: sustainable solution or distraction from the plastic waste crisis? Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts This will be a big year in shaping the future of chemical recycling Chemical recycling “a dangerous deception” for solving plastic pollution: Report Paused Ohio chemical recycling plant puts spotlight on Appalachia as “prime target” for the controversial practice Residents fear Pennsylvania, West Virginia chemical recycling proposals will deepen fossil fuel ties and pollution problems Q&A: Director of sustainability at Eastman Chemical Company talks chemical recyclingLatest chemical recycling plant closing spurs concern over the industry’s viability



The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international, legally binding plastic pollution treaty will take place from April 23 to April 29 in Ottawa, Canada.

In the first three sessions of treaty talks, negotiators from about 175 countries — along with industry representatives, environmentalists and others — met to advance a treaty to address global plastic pollution.

What’s at stake in the plastic treaty talks? 


The plastic crisis is threatening both the planet and human and wildlife health.

  • Global plastic waste is set to almost triple by 2060.
  • The world generates roughly 400 million tons of plastic waste each year.
  • Less than 10% of plastic ever made has been recycled.

The treaty is the first international attempt to address this.

What’s the state of the plastic treaty? 


Consensus was elusive at the last round of talks in Kenya.

There is a High Ambition Coalition of countries that wants an end to plastic pollution by 2040. There is also a Global Coalition for Plastics Sustainability — largely nations economically reliant on fossil fuels such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Cuba, China and Bahrain — that has positioned itself as the counterbalance to the High Ambition Coalition and is pushing for a larger focus on addressing plastic waste (via chemical and mechanical recycling and other means) rather than plastic bans or production limits. The U.S. is not part of either.

Some sticking points include:

  • Regulating the chemicals in plastic production
  • Plastic production caps
  • The role of chemical recycling and bioplastics

Where can I learn more about the plastic treaty?


You can see all of the details of the upcoming treaty meeting at the UN Environment Programme website.

Want to learn more broadly about the treaty and how plastic pollution impacts our health? Our newsroom has been hard at work on exploring these issues. Below we have articles to help you understand the treaty process and progress, plastic impacts to our health and chemical recycling and bioplastics.

And follow our newsroom on X, Instagram or Facebook to stay up-to-date on this historic treaty.

Plastic treaty coverage 


“Plastic will overwhelm us:” Scientists say health should be the core of global plastic treaty

Opinion: Pete Myers discusses the "Health Scientists' Global Plastic Treaty"

Plastics treaty draft underway, but will the most impacted countries be included?

Opinion: UN plastics treaty should prioritize health and climate change

Op-Ed: How the United Nations could avoid silencing voices during Plastic Treaty negotiations

Scientists: US needs to support a strong global agreement to curb plastic pollution

Plastic and our health


What is plastic pollution?

Plastic chemicals are more numerable and less regulated than previously thought

Recycling plastics “extremely problematic” due to toxic chemical additives

Every stage of plastic production and use is harming human health

Massive new database on how plastic chemicals harm our health

Chemical recycling and bioplastics


What is chemical recycling?

Bioplastics: sustainable solution or distraction from the plastic waste crisis?

Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts

This will be a big year in shaping the future of chemical recycling

Chemical recycling “a dangerous deception” for solving plastic pollution: Report

Paused Ohio chemical recycling plant puts spotlight on Appalachia as “prime target” for the controversial practice

Residents fear Pennsylvania, West Virginia chemical recycling proposals will deepen fossil fuel ties and pollution problems

Q&A: Director of sustainability at Eastman Chemical Company talks chemical recycling

Latest chemical recycling plant closing spurs concern over the industry’s viability

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

EPA urged to classify abortion drugs as pollutants

It follows 40 other anti-abortion groups and lawmakers previously calling for the EPA to assess the water pollution levels of the drug.

(NewsNation) — Anti-abortion group Students for Life of America is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to add abortion drug mifepristone to its list of water contaminants. It follows 40 other anti-abortion groups and lawmakers previously calling for the EPA to assess the water pollution levels of the abortion drug. “The EPA has the regulatory authority and humane responsibility to determine the extent of abortion water pollution, caused by the reckless and negligent policies pushed by past administrations through the [Food and Drug Administration],” Kristan Hawkins, president of SFLA, said in a release. “Take the word ‘abortion’ out of it and ask, should chemically tainted blood and placenta tissue, along with human remains, be flushed by the tons into America’s waterways? And since the federal government set that up, shouldn’t we know what’s in our water?” she added. In 2025, lawmakers from seven states introduced bills, none of which passed, to either order environmental studies on the effects of mifepristone in water or to enact environmental regulations for the drug. EPA’s Office of Water leaders met with Politico in November, with its press secretary Brigit Hirsch telling the outlet it “takes the issue of pharmaceuticals in our water systems seriously and employs a rigorous, science-based approach to protect human health and the environment.” “As always, EPA encourages all stakeholders invested in clean and safe drinking water to review the proposals and submit comments,” Hirsch added. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Trump’s EPA' in 2025: A Fossil Fuel-Friendly Approach to Deregulation

The Trump administration has reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency, reversing pollution limits and promoting fossil fuels

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has transformed the Environmental Protection Agency in its first year, cutting federal limits on air and water pollution and promoting fossil fuels, a metamorphosis that clashes with the agency’s historic mission to protect human health and the environment.The administration says its actions will “unleash” the American economy, but environmentalists say the agency’s abrupt change in focus threatens to unravel years of progress on climate-friendly initiatives that could be hard or impossible to reverse.“It just constantly wants to pat the fossil fuel business on the back and turn back the clock to a pre-Richard Nixon era” when the agency didn’t exist, said historian Douglas Brinkley.Zeldin has argued the EPA can protect the environment and grow the economy at the same time. He announced “five pillars” to guide EPA’s work; four were economic goals, including energy dominance — Trump’s shorthand for more fossil fuels — and boosting the auto industry.Zeldin, a former New York congressman who had a record as a moderate Republican on some environmental issues, said his views on climate change have evolved. Many federal and state climate goals are unattainable in the near future — and come at huge cost, he said.“We should not be causing … extreme economic pain for an individual or a family” because of policies aimed at “saving the planet,” he told reporters at EPA headquarters in early December.But scientists and experts say the EPA's new direction comes at a cost to public health, and would lead to far more pollutants in the environment, including mercury, lead and especially tiny airborne particles that can lodge in lungs. They also note higher emissions of greenhouse gases will worsen atmospheric warming that is driving more frequent, costly and deadly extreme weather.Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who led the EPA for several years under President George W. Bush, said watching Zeldin attack laws protecting air and water has been “just depressing.” “It’s tragic for our country. I worry about my grandchildren, of which I have seven. I worry about what their future is going to be if they don’t have clean air, if they don’t have clean water to drink,” she said.The EPA was launched under Nixon in 1970 with pollution disrupting American life, some cities suffocating in smog and some rivers turned into wastelands by industrial chemicals. Congress passed laws then that remain foundational for protecting water, air and endangered species.The agency's aggressiveness has always seesawed depending on who occupies the White House. Former President Joe Biden's administration boosted renewable energy and electric vehicles, tightened motor-vehicle emissions and proposed greenhouse gas limits on coal-fired power plants and oil and gas wells. Industry groups called rules overly burdensome and said the power plant rule would force many aging plants to shut down. In response, many businesses shifted resources to meet the more stringent rules that are now being undone.“While the Biden EPA repeatedly attempted to usurp the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law to impose its ‘Green New Scam,’ the Trump EPA is laser-focused on achieving results for the American people while operating within the limits of the laws passed by Congress,” EPA spokeswoman Brigit Hirsch said. Zeldin's list of targets is long Much of EPA’s new direction aligns with Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation road map that argued the agency should gut staffing, cut regulations and end what it called a war on coal on other fossil fuels.“A lot of the regulations that were put on during the Biden administration were more harmful and restrictive than in any other period. So that’s why deregulating them looks like EPA is making major changes,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of Heritage's Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment.But Chris Frey, an EPA official under Biden, said the regulations Zeldin has targeted “offered benefits of avoided premature deaths, of avoided chronic illness … bad things that would not happen because of these rules.”Matthew Tejada, a former EPA official under both Trump and Biden who now works at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the revamped EPA: “I think it would be hard for them to make it any clearer to polluters in this country that they can go on about their business and not worry about EPA getting in their way.”Zeldin also has shrunk EPA staffing by about 20% to levels last seen in the mid-1980s. Justin Chen, president of the EPA’s largest union, called staff cuts “devastating.” He cited the dismantling of research and development offices at labs across the country and the firing of employees who signed a letter of dissent opposing EPA cuts. Relaxed enforcement and cutting staff Many of Zeldin's changes aren't in effect yet. It takes time to propose new rules, get public input and finalize rollbacks. It's much faster to cut grants and ease up on enforcement, and Trump's EPA is doing both. The number of new civil environmental actions is roughly one-fifth what it was in the first eight months of the Biden administration, according to the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. “You can effectively do a lot of deregulation if you just don’t do enforcement,” said Leif Fredrickson, visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Montana.Hirsch said the number of legal filings isn't the best way to judge enforcement because they require work outside of the EPA and can bog staff down with burdensome legal agreements. She said the EPA is “focused on efficiently resolving violations and achieving compliance as quickly as possible” and not making demands beyond what the law requires.EPA's cuts have been especially hard on climate change programs and environmental justice, the effort to address chronic pollution that typically is worse in minority and poor communities. Both were Biden priorities. Zeldin dismissed staff and canceled billions in grants for projects that fell under the “diversity, equity and inclusion” umbrella, a Trump administration target.He also spiked a $20 billion “green bank” set up under Biden’s landmark climate law to fund qualifying clean energy projects. Zeldin argued the fund was a scheme to funnel money to Democrat-aligned organizations with little oversight — allegations a federal judge rejected. Pat Parenteau, an environmental law expert and former director of the Environmental Law School at Vermont Law & Graduate School, said the EPA's shift under Trump left him with little optimism for what he called “the two most awful crises in the 21st century” — biodiversity loss and climate disruption.“I don’t see any hope for either one,” he said. “I really don’t. And I’ll be long gone, but I think the world is in just for absolute catastrophe.”The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

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