Fifty years in the past, plastic merchandise didn’t have a grip on our lives and households as they do at this time. Ceramic, glass, and clay jars, just like the Egyptian water jug qolla, had been used for storage, and metals like copper and tin had been used for cooking and preserving meals. Palm leaf baskets, material wraps, and parchments had been the go-to for purchasing and packaging. Clothes had been constituted of pure fibers like wool, cotton, leather-based, and linen. Reuse and restore had been the norm, and supplies had been sturdy and biodegradable, which is a stark distinction to at this time’s ugly piles of single-use plastics, which leak poisonous chemical compounds into our our bodies and setting, silently killing nature and wildlife.
Plastic waste is projected to triple globally by 2060, from 460 million tons in 2019 to 1,231 million tons, according to the Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD).
In August 2025, international negotiations collapsed at INC5.2, the second a part of the fifth session of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which is tasked with drafting a global legally binding treaty to curb plastic air pollution, as soon as once more, following the primary session final November in South Korea.
Plastic manufacturing is on the coronary heart of the negotiations: a coalition of 100 nations, together with the EU, Canada, and plenty of African nations which are susceptible to plastic air pollution, locked horns with fossil fuel-producing international locations, reminiscent of the USA, Russia, and Gulf states. The latter group rejected the inclusion of a binding goal to cap plastic manufacturing in protection of their petrochemical industries, which continue to thrive on sustained international demand for plastics. As the method requires unanimous settlement, slightly than a majority vote, the talks stalled.
One other disagreement additionally emerged over the need of together with robust and truthful financing mechanisms to make sure that “international locations within the International South obtain the required assist to realize a “simply transition towards a plastic-free future,” Farah Al Hattab, Lead Plastics Campaigner at Greenpeace Center East and North Africa (MENA) and delegate at INC5.2, informed Egyptian Streets.
Opinions had been additionally divided on the way to outline the record of dangerous chemical compounds and plastic merchandise that must be explicitly banned below the settlement, she mentioned.
“In the course of the negotiations, some international locations that assist bold motion on the nationwide degree might have performed a stronger position by being extra vocal and assertive. In the meantime, different international locations negotiated in unhealthy religion, intentionally creating deadlocks and slowing progress,” Al Hattab famous.
“A extra united, clear, and proactive method might have moved the talks ahead extra successfully…Whereas there was seen frustration within the room over how the negotiations unfolded, that frustration displays simply how pressing and high-stakes this challenge is,” she added.
Why Egypt Wants a International Plastics Treaty
In the course of the two-week negotiations in Geneva, from 4 to five August, Egypt known as for a treaty that covers the lifecycle of plastic, from the design of the plastic product to the disposal and administration of the waste, in response to Mohamed Kamal, Director of Greenish Basis.
Nevertheless, nearly all of international locations which are non-plastic producers needed the ‘lifecycle’ to be outlined beginning with the manufacturing and extraction of the uncooked materials, petroleum.
Egypt is at the moment the Center East’s largest producer of plastic merchandise, with greater than 12,000 plastic manufacturing amenities.
Contemplating the financial significance of the petrochemical business to Egypt, surpassing 4 million tons of merchandise in 2023, as nicely as the truth that the nation is confronted with serious plastic pollution challenges, it’s put in “a tricky crossroad”, Kamal acknowledged. He defined that Cairo is located between an African group looking for a robust, legally binding treaty and an Arab group advocating for a waste administration treaty with none restrictions on plastic manufacturing.
On the identical time, “Egypt positioned itself as a agency advocate for strong monetary mechanisms that will allow International South international locations to implement the treaty pretty and successfully”, Al-Hattab mentioned, including that “Egypt’s negotiators…introduced robust technical experience to the negotiations.”
The Egyptian INC5.2 delegation included representatives from the ministries of overseas affairs and petroleum, together with the Federation of Egyptian Industries.
A robust international plastics treaty is essential for the nation as “Egypt faces one of the crucial advanced plastic air pollution challenges within the MENA area, with extreme impacts on its setting, economic system, and public well being,” Al Hattab acknowledged.
“From the Nile River to the Mediterranean and Pink Sea coasts, plastic waste is damaging marine ecosystems, threatening biodiversity, and affecting key sectors like tourism and fishing, all of that are important to Egypt’s economic system and livelihoods,” she mentioned.
Yearly, 100,000 marine mammals die worldwide because of plastic air pollution.
Egypt generates round 2.5 million tons of plastic waste yearly, whereas consuming roughly 5 million tons. The Egyptian authorities spends an estimated USD 200 million (EGP 9.6 billion) every year managing strong waste. Single-use plastics make up about 40 percent of home plastic consumption, making them a significant driver of air pollution.
Furthermore, many communities in Egypt, significantly these in low-income or rural areas, are disproportionately uncovered to the dangerous results of plastic waste and related poisonous chemical compounds, Al Hattab highlighted.
Microplastics, items of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters, are additionally at the moment a significant environmental and well being hazard. A 2023 study printed within the Journal of Sea Analysis confirmed that fish generally consumed in Egypt have been discovered to comprise microplastics, and in some circumstances, even seen plastic fragments, elevating severe considerations about public well being and meals security.
People eat as much as five grams of microplastics per week, through meals and water in addition to respiratory them in, which might find yourself within the brain, placenta, testicular tissues, ovarian follicular fluid, lungs, and blood.
Despite the fact that the total results are nonetheless unknown, scientists have linked microplastics to quite a lot of health problems, together with most cancers, neurotoxicity, hormone disruption, and reproductive, digestive, and respiratory points.
A Temporary Historical past of Plastic and the Phantasm of Consolation
Whereas synthetic plastic was invented in 1862, plastic began to seep into households as a mass-produced product in industrialized Western international locations a couple of century later. By the mid-Twentieth century, plastics had been marketed as modernity in materials type. Single-use plastics promised time financial savings, comfort, and cleanliness, creating an illusion of consolation, whereas externalizing waste prices to oceans, rivers, and communities.
Beginning within the mid-Twentieth century, fast-moving client items (FMCG) corporations, reminiscent of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, grew to become the largest drivers of plastic demand and waste, utilizing it for bottles, sachets, and packaging. From 1950 to 2000, international plastic manufacturing skyrocketed from two to 234 million metric tons annually.
Inner business paperwork show consciousness of environmental dangers for many years, but corporations continued to closely market plastics. Petrochemical and packaging corporations funded campaigns portraying plastics as ‘recyclable’, regardless that research confirmed most plastics couldn’t be economically recycled.
Hundreds of thousands of {dollars} are spent lobbying towards bans, greenwashing, and presenting false options reminiscent of superior or chemical recycling, whereas in actuality, only nine percent of world plastic waste is recycled.
An analysis carried out by the Heart for Worldwide Environmental Legislation (CIEL) on 7 August, throughout the INC5.2 negotiations, revealed that 234 worldwide fossil gasoline and chemical business lobbyists had gained entry to the talks in Geneva.
Following the collapse of the August spherical of negotiations (INC5.2), Egypt’s Minister of Native Improvement and performing Minister of Surroundings, Manal Awad, stressed the urgency of reaching a worldwide settlement to fight plastic air pollution, pointing to the intense dangers to the setting and public well being it poses.
The talks in Geneva ended with out setting a date for the INC to reconvene.
“Egypt has the potential to play a number one position within the negotiations,” Al Hattab mentioned, pointing to its nationwide insurance policies to fight plastic air pollution, together with the not too long ago launched Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and bans on sure single-use plastics.
“This treaty affords Egypt the chance to assist form international guidelines that mirror the realities and priorities of the International South, whereas additionally defending its personal setting, individuals, and long-term growth targets,” she mentioned.
Al-Hattab is “cautiously optimistic” concerning the subsequent spherical of negotiations. Greenpeace MENA, together with different civil society organizations, requires a robust, legally binding treaty. The treaty, they maintain, should embrace a worldwide manufacturing discount goal, banning single-use plastics, bold reusing targets, and establishing strong and equitable monetary mechanisms to assist Egypt and different International South international locations in implementing the treaty and guaranteeing a simply transition to a round economic system.
A world treaty has the potential to form the longer term, making it more healthy, cleaner. and considerably lowering overconsumption induced by unregulated personal sector producers, and may “pressure Egypt to require a transition from its quickly rising petrochemical business,” Kamal confused.
“A cleaner Nile, cleaner seashores, and safer plastic merchandise are the true potential of this conference for Egyptians, if formed proper,” he mentioned.