CSOs call for ASEAN Leadership for a Successful Global Plastics Treaty to End Plastic Pollution

As a region, Southeast Asia is severely impacted by pollution caused at various stages in the plastic life cycle. Several reports and studies have shown how petrochemical industries, plastic manufacturing, plastic consumption and usage, plastics recycling, incineration and disposal, are sources of harm to the environment and health of people in Southeast Asia.⁴ Plastic pollution occurs in many forms from macroplastics in the Mekong River and the seas, to microplastics and additives or unintentional releases from plastic waste management and recycling such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).^5,6 Unsanitary landfills, and illegal dumpsites with hazardous electronic waste impact people in Malaysia.⁷ Discarded or lost fishing gears made from plastics affect marine ecosystems in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.⁸ Microplastics and POPs have already both been found in the bodies of people in Indonesia and Thailand.^9,10 All these pose an imminent and serious threat to public health in our region.

Southeast Asia is also impacted by plastic waste imported from other regions, with developed nations such as the United States, Japan, China, and European nations included among the major exporters.¹¹ Plastic waste exported by developed nations is not only shipped as plastic waste, but also mixed in waste paper bales as non-recyclable flexible plastic scraps, snack packs and dirty plastic cups and bottles, or multilayered plastic pouches, even soiled diapers.¹² These “impurities” - which likely contain a significant amount of plastics - in paper waste shipped from Europe, can make up to 10% of the total volume.¹³ Large quantities of plastics could also be hidden in paper imports, as is the case in the illegal export of 130 tons of municipal waste - falsely declared as paper - from Australia to Thailand in 2022.¹⁴ There have also been trends in exporting plastic waste as fuel or Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) from developed countries, undermining the effort of In Southeast Asian nations to resist waste colonialism.¹⁵ Tracking of trade in plastic waste in various forms can be notoriously difficult, especially along porous borders in the region, such as that between Myanmar and Thailand.¹⁶

Our region has a recent collective history of using natural materials, and is a fertile ground for environmentally sound, economically beneficial, and citizen-led solutions to the plastic crisis. These include zero waste solutions that are already up and running in Hoi An, Vietnam¹⁷, reuse pilots in Manila, Philippines¹⁸, reuse systems in Jakarta, Indonesia¹⁹, and water refill infrastructures in Bangkok, Thailand, the latter with the support of the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority. ²⁰Aside from local governments, national governments in our region have shown ambitions to lead the way in implementing policies to curb plastic pollution, and have individually made strong statements in past INCs. ASEAN has also voiced its collective ambition to combat plastic pollution as a region.²¹

1. To address the full life cycle of plastic, prioritizing reduction in plastic production, starting with avoidable and hazardous plastics based on an essential use criteria approach.
2. To end the transboundary movement of plastic waste and waste colonialism.
3. To eliminate toxins across the life cycle of plastics by chemical (including polymer) groups, including chemical additives, both intentionally and non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), and microplastics.
4. To increase transparency, traceability, labelling and harmonized disclosure of chemicals in plastics  as well as the reporting of pollution through the pollutant release and transfer register.
5. To scale up reuse and refill infrastructures that meet global minimum design criteria including standardized toxic-free packaging, safe collection and redistribution mechanisms and binding reuse targets.
6. To reject technologies that do not address the root cause of plastic pollution, and instead worsen impacts on human health and the environment, including chemical recycling, incineration, waste-to-energy, refuse-derived-fuel (RDF), and similar technologies.
7. To prevent regrettable substitutes such as bio-based, biodegradable and compostable plastics which have been shown to contain toxic chemicals²² and only divert attention away from the reduction of plastic production²³.
8. To mandate polluter and producer accountability through global standards for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and a mechanism for the Polluter Pays Principle.
9. To give a central role to human rights and social justice for all people impacted by plastic pollution, including workers across the plastic life cycle, especially waste-pickers, indigenous peoples & Global South communities, through Just Transition.
10. To strengthen research and monitoring of the impacts of plastic on human health and the environment, with an eye towards restoration, compensation, and remediation.