Unctad: Trade policy can curb Covid-linked plastics pollution

IT has become increasingly obvious in recent months that countries struggling to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic have created new forms of plastic pollution along the way, but the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said they can help fight this through trade policies.

In a statement, Unctad Director of International Trade Pamela Cokehamilton lamented that while the pandemic helped reduce GHG emissions, it has significantly increased plastic pollution of the world ’s oceans.

Coke-hamilton said all the plastic face masks, gloves, hand sanitizer bottles, and food packaging waste are polluting beaches and oceans worldwide.

“Plastic pollution was already one of the greatest threats to our planet before the coronavirus outbreak,” Coke-hamilton said. “The sudden boom in the daily use of certain products to keep people safe and stop the disease is making things much worse.”

Coke-hamilton said global trade policies can play an important role in fighting plastic pollution. Policies such as technical regulations, subsidies, licenses and bans can help in this regard.

She said the number of trade measures mentioning plastics reported by the World Trade Organization (WTO) increased by 28 percent in the past 10 years, showing that more WTO members are concerned about it.

The Unctad official said the 164 developing and developed economies that make up the WTO have the ability to write multilateral trade rules that could address the fundamental issues of the global plastics economy.

“The way countries have been using trade policy to fight plastic pollution has mostly been uncoordinated, which limits the effectiveness of their efforts,” Coke-hamilton said. “There are limits to what any country can achieve on its own.”

Apart from regulating the production and consumption of plastics, Unctad said governments and businesses should identify nonfossil fuel plastic substitutes.

The list of nontoxic, biodegradable or easily recyclable materials that could replace plastic includes many well-known materials, such as glass, ceramics, natural fibers, paper, cardboard, rice husk, natural rubber and animal proteins.

The increased global demand for these plastic substitutes could create new, greener trade and investment opportunities for countries.

Developing nations supply 92 percent of the world’s jute, with the main suppliers being Bangladesh (74 percent) and India (9 percent).

They also accounted for 94 percent of global natural rubber exports in 2019, with Thailand (31.5 percent), Indonesia (30 percent) and Côte d’ivoire (8.5 percent) leading the pack.

Developing countries have a big stake in the global plastics economy. Two out of three plastic manufacturing jobs are in the global south.

The share of these countries in the global plastics production jumped to 58 percent in 2018 from 43.5 percent in 2009.

“Since many plastics substitutes are also labor-intensive, changes in production and consumption patterns could create new jobs,” Cokehamilton said.

Unctad said the UN Environment Programme earlier estimated that about 75 percent of coronavirus plastic will likely become waste clogging our landfills and floating in our seas.

Unep said the negative spillover effects of plastic waste on fisheries, tourism and maritime transport, for example, add up to an estimated $40 billion each year.