Exploring the Option of a New Global Agreement on Marine Plastic Pollution – A Guide to the Issues

Introduction 1.

Marine plastic pollution is an urgent problem of growing international concern. Each year, millions of tonnes of plastic are discharged into the marine environment, posing a significant threat to life in the ocean and, indirectly, to all those who depend on it. While it is not known exactly how much plastic there is in the world’s oceans, it has been estimated that several million tonnes of plastic leak into the marine environment every year, 1 and more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing more than 250,000 tonnes, are floating around on the surface alone. 2 Unless effective measures are taken, the problem of marine plastic pollution is likely to grow. In a “business-as-usual” scenario it has been suggested that by the year 2050, the world’s oceans may contain nearly 1 billion tonnes of plastic. 3 Over the past 40 years, an increasing number of States and other actors have come to see marine plastic pollution as a global problem in need of a collective response. Because plastic pollution crosses national borders, and even areas beyond national jurisdictions, an 1 See for instance Jenna R. Jambeck, Roland Geyer, Chris Wilcox, Theodore R. Siegler, Miriam Perryman, Anthony Andrady, Ramani Narayan, and Kara Lavender Law (2015), “Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean”, Science 347, 2015, pp. 768–771; Laurent Lebreton and Anthony Andrady (2019), “Future scenarios of global plastic waste generation and disposal”, Palgrave Communications ; Winnie W. Y. Lau et al. (2020), “Evaluating scenarios toward zero plastic pollution”, Science, 18 Sep 2020: Vol. 369, Issue 6510, pp. 1455-1461; Stephanie B. Borrelle et al. (2020), “Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution”, Science, 18 Sep 2020: Vol. 369, Issue 6510, pp. 1515-1518. 2 Marcus Eriksen, Laurent Lebreton, Henry Carson, Martin Thiel, Charles Moore, Jose Borerro, Francois Galgani, Peter Ryan, and Julia Reisser (2014), “Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans: More than 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250,000 tons afloat at sea”, PLoS ONE 9(12), e111913. 3 World Economic Forum (2017), “The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics”, in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

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