On September 4, 2023, the United Nations unveiled the Zero Draft of the Global Plastics Treaty. This text is designed to guide and support the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee at their upcoming meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in November, the goal being to have a formal treaty in place by the end of 2024. The initial draft is just that, a draft. So far, it seems promising that vital elimination and reduction topics are now firmly on the agenda. However, the outline of interventions is not nearly specific enough to get us to the goal of ending plastic pollution.

Debating into the dead of night – the intergovernmental negotiating committee of over 170 country delegates and observers kept many of us at the edge of our seats. After all, there is a lot at stake: like the climate and the biodiversity crises, plastic pollution is now also officially a planetary crisis. A UN Treaty on Plastics will have the ability to change this and can have a profound impact on the way we produce and consume plastics. Willemijn Peeters gives her take on negotiations so far.