The lessons for India from the plastics treaty

In 2025, itis no longer up for debate: Plastics are polluting our planet —and our bodies.

- Bharati Chaturvedi

Microplastic fibres have been found in our lungs, breast milk, food, air, and oceans. Plastics are no longer just an environmental nuisance; they've become a public health crisis. Over 16,000 chemicals are used to manufacture plastics, most of which are unregulated and untested. More than 4,000 are already flagged as hazardous to human and environmental health. These have been linked toa wide range of illnesses — cancers, hormonal disruption, heart conditions, infertility, autoimmune diseases, and more.

The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics, released on August 4, estimates that plastics cause disease and death across all age groups and cost the world over $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses each year. That’sa bill no country can afford.

Inresponse to mounting evidence, the United Nations Environment ‘Assembly (UNEA) began negotiating a Global Plastics Treaty in 2022. The sixth round of talks (INC-5.2) in Geneva just concluded. Unfortunately, the treaty process has highlighted the deep failures of multilater-alism. The treaty's stated goal — to end plastic pollution, including its impacts on the marine environment, while safeguarding human health and ecosystems — has been interpreted so differently by different nations that it has lost its clarity. Not everyone agrees that reducing plastic production is necessary. But without reducing the pollutant, it’s impossible to prevent pollution.