 | |
|
Entitled "Turning off the Plastics Tap through a BHR lens," the essay focuses on the human rights dimensions of the global plastics problem, the work of a team of researchers at Dalhousie (nder Prof. Seck's leadership) in the development and delivery of (virtual) trainings on a human rights-based approach to plastic pollution across the value chain for UNEP, the Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) and SEA Circular, together with regional partners including WWF Philippines and the Indonesian Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the key learnings that emerged form their work.
The essay follows in full below.
Turning off the Plastics Tap through a BHR lens
 |
| Pix courtesy of the impressive folks at #TurnOffThePlasticTap; website link here |
The contribution of plastic pollution to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste is under increased scrutiny. On March 2022, a United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolution created an intergovernmental negotiating committee tasked with developing an internationally binding instrument to tackle plastic pollution using a full lifecycle approach. The first negotiating session was concluded in December 2022 in Uruguay, with the second set for France in late May 2023. In preparation for these negotiations, the UNEP released a background document on Plastic Pollution Science, which concluded in part that at the heart of the plastics crisis is the “resource-inefficient, linear, take-make-waste plastic economy”.
The human rights dimension of the plastics problem is also receiving increased attention. In 2021, Marcos A Orellana, the Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights (SR Toxics) released a report entitled The Stages of the Plastics Cycle and Their Impacts on Human Rights which considers each stage of the linear fossil-fuel-based plastics cycle, from extraction to production, transportation, use and waste generation, and waste management and disposal. The SR Toxics’ human rights-focused report complements reports by UNEP such as the 2021 From Pollution to Solution: A Global Assessment of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution. The OECD has also been studying the problem and in 2022 released its Global Plastics Outlook. A common theme is that at most only 9% of plastic waste is in fact recycled (15% is collected), and that OECD countries generate almost half of global plastic waste with the United States then Canada shamefully at the top of the list (by far) in terms of the most plastic waste generated per person (p42 Table 2.5). Unfortunately, fossil-fuel based virgin plastic production continues to increase at a rapid rate with no sign of slow down despite increasing awareness of the problem, such as the Minderoo Foundation’s Plastic Waste Makers Index, and initiatives to address it such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s work on circular economy.
The business and human rights (BHR) dimensions of the plastics challenge are complex. From 2021-2022, the writer led a team of researchers at Dalhousie in the development and delivery of (virtual) trainings on a human rights-based approach to plastic pollution across the value chain for UNEP, the Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) and SEA Circular, together with regional partners including WWF Philippines and the Indonesian Business Council for Sustainable Development. Our aim was to introduce participants to the human rights implications of each stage of the plastics life cycle; to consider how the components of an environmental human rights framework (substance, procedure, equity) modelled on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment could inform understandings of the plastics challenge and solutions to it; and to introduce participants to BHR guidance tools (eg the UNGPs, UN Global Compact, and OECD RBC risk-based due diligence tools) so as to inform the prevention and remedy of plastic human rights harms.
Several key learnings emerged from our work. First, there is an urgent need to build both circular economy and human rights due diligence into product design, rather than hoping that waste management and recycling might solve everything later in the life cycle. This would prevent human rights harms at each stage of the take-make-waste linear fossil fuels-based plastics cycle. For example, beyond extraction of fossil fuels for virgin plastic production, human rights and environmental justice concerns arise at the petrochemical refining stage, as well as during the transportation of plastic pellets, while workers’ rights are implicated during the manufacturing stage due to the use of toxic chemical additives that also impact consumers who use plastics. Another key learning is the importance of accounting for the rights of informal workers especially at the waste management stage, and ensuring their rights to healthy and sustainable livelihoods. A further insight is the interlinked nature of the plastics and climate crises including concerns that fossil fuel companies have been counting on increased production of plastics to justify continued extraction. There is an urgent need to ‘turn off the tap’ to prevent the ever-increasing production of virgin fossil-fuel based plastics. Yet solutions must also be tackled through a circular economy and human rights due diligence lens, or one disaster will replace another, such as the production of plastics-based fuels derived from plastic waste.
A comprehensive dive into the trainings is not possible here but may be found in the background detailed Policy Training Resource. It is also important to keep in mind that the plastics challenge manifests differently in different regions of the world. Rich countries have for too long irresponsibly placed the burden of addressing their plastic waste on countries in the global south, something that the Basel Convention is trying to address through Plastics Waste Amendments. Unfortunately, illegal exports continue. These must stop. Plastic pollution is even found in remote locations such as the Arctic marine environment. Real solutions may reside in local knowledge that has been displaced by the plastics economy, while reduction in overconsumption patterns is an essential first step.
Overall, all actors in the plastics value chain need to understand the human rights implications of the plastics life cycle. This can build the capacity of duty bearers, whether governments or businesses, to act responsibility, while also building the capacity of rights holders to exercise their environmental human rights and hold duty bearers accountable. Unfortunately, too many businesses continue to challenge government attempts to regulate plastics, rather than taking their own responsibilities seriously, and may even be supported in federal states by other governments seeking benefit economically from the expansion of petrochemical production.
The aim is for the plastics treaty to concluded in 2024, and many hope that it will integrate a human rights-based approach, as recommended by the SR Toxics. Ultimately, insights from BHR will be crucial to meaningful long-term solutions. Indeed, the need to better study the BHR dimensions of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment was clearly put on the agenda in a recent resolution of the Human Rights Council. This should certainly include the responsibility of business enterprises to respect human rights at each stage of the plastics life cycle, with the ultimate aim to transition to a circular economy of zero plastic waste of benefit to marine and terrestrial biodiversity, and so, both people and planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment