Negotiations on a UN treaty on plastic pollution kicked off this week in Uruguay.

 As the voice of global business, ICC was in Punta del Este to participate in the multi-stakeholder and regional consultations aimed at developing a global treaty to eliminate plastic waste upstream during production and downstream during waste management. In our statement, we called for an ambitious legally binding instrument to help guide businesses to become positive actors in transitioning to a circular economy for plastics. We also urged all countries to seize the opportunity to work with the private sector to establish an inclusive, efficient and effective negotiating process to tackle the common goal of ending plastic pollution.

Before a report was built around several real-life case studies – developed by a series of stakeholder consultations with ICC’s global business networks over the past years – which illustrate the complexities and delays that businesses face in implementing circular approaches throughout their value-chains. In this connection, the analysis shows how:

• The repurposing or recycling of electric vehicle batteries is significantly inhibited by divergences across jurisdictions in recycling regulations or definitions of what constitute waste.
• The lack of common interpretation of European rules leads to delays or barriers to “waste” movements across EU jurisdictions – with countries adopting different lists of what is considered hazardous waste.
• Companies struggle to navigate national laws that do not effectively differentiate between products or materials which can be reused, repaired, repurposed, or refurbished versus those that should be recycled or disposed.
• The reuse of “waste” materials is often limited by trade standards which only consider the origin of a product rather than its quality.
• The application of punitive tariffs on secondary materials can significantly drive up the cost of deploying circular approaches.