Rwanda and Peru have submitted a proposal to host the Global Plastics Treaty Diplomatic Conference in Kigali and an Early Action Conference in Lima.
The joint proposal comes at a time when the United Nations is in talks pushing for the first global treaty to reduce soaring plastic waste.
The UN is encouraging countries to come together and secure the agreement.
About 400m tonnes of plastic is produced every year globally but much of which ends up in our oceans or in landfill.
In March 2022, a total of 175 countries adopted a mandate opening negotiations for a global, legally binding treaty to address the whole life cycle of plastics.
Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK who will chair the UN intergovernmental negotiations on a future international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada, this week noted; “It is very important we are negotiating this treaty now. “
“The world is in a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. But while there are agreements in place for the first two, we have no legislation, no global agreement on plastic pollution,” said Valdivieso.
“This is a negotiation, there are regions and countries with a specific position that we understand. We know plastic pollution is affecting the environment, we know it’s affecting human health because of the substances in plastics,” he added.
Previous negotiations in Nairobi stalled last November when oil-producing nations proposed to focus on waste management rather than scaling down production of plastic.
Most – 98% – of single-use plastics are made from fossil fuels, and the top seven plastic-producing companies are fossil fuel companies, according to data from 2021.
