The treaty is likely to adopt a hybrid approach, balancing national action plans with global frameworks for transparency and monitoring.
As we approach the fifth and final round of negotiations for the global plastic treaty, in Busan, Republic of Korea in November 2024, pressure is increasing for countries to deliver an ambitious treaty that will effectively curb plastic pollution.
The United Nations Environment Assembly Resolution 14 (), adopted in March 2022, calls for a "comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic." However, a persistent lack of data to inform indicators of progress has hindered the global and national decision-making needed to mitigate plastic pollution, encourage sustainable practices, and support circular economy initiatives.
The treaty is likely to adopt a hybrid approach, balancing national action plans with global frameworks for transparency and monitoring. Its success will largely depend on these transparency and accountability requirements, which are premised on national data availability, with an expected "ratcheting" mechanism to encourage countries to increase ambition over time in delivering global goals.
Comprehensive data is crucial to track the full lifecycle of plastics, from production to disposal and environmental release. Currently, most countries face significant limitations in tracking plastic flows, with data fragmented across different lifecycle stages and sectors. This fragmentation impedes holistic understanding and effective policy implementation. Without robust national data systems or pathways to develop them, countries will struggle to:
Developing comprehensive national data infrastructures, with adequate support for capacity building, finance, and technology transfer, is essential for the treaty's success in combating the global plastic problem. Addressing the data gap is crucial to secure ambition and equity within the treaty design, and to enable the effective increasing of commitments over time.
To aid countries in assessing their readiness for implementing the treaty, in terms of national data availability, we have prepared the Plastics Data Checklist (the Checklist) and User Guide. The Checklist covers essential data points across the lifecycle of plastics, providing a comprehensive overview of data availability to inform plastic management. It focuses on nine data categories including production, consumption, trade (Import & Export), plastic waste, waste treatment, waste trade, environmental leakage, alternative waste collection and handling methods and source-level activities (Figure 1).
These categories align with the treaty's expected scope of addressing the full lifecycle of plastics.
Together, these data points provide a holistic view of the plastic lifecycle, enabling countries to develop targeted interventions, track progress, and contribute meaningfully to global plastic pollution reduction efforts.
This Checklist is designed for government officials and policymakers seeking to understand the current availability of relevant data, identify key data gaps ahead of needing to develop national action plans, and establish a foundation for developing comprehensive national plastics inventories and evidence-based policies. It serves as a crucial first step in understanding the flow of plastics within a country, from production and import to consumption, waste management and final disposal. This can provide countries with an understanding of priorities for funding, technical and capacity building and enable early requests for such support following adoption of the global plastic treaty.
The Checklist is not meant to be exhaustive or overwhelming, but rather provides an accessible entry point for countries to start assessing their plastic situation and initiating the necessary national coordination to link data with policy development and implementation. Â
As capabilities expand over time, ideally supported by mechanisms established through the global plastics treaty, countries can gradually broaden their data collection efforts to build a more comprehensive picture of their national plastics landscape.
To use the Checklist, we suggest following three main steps:
For countries beginning their journey to collect data on plastics, the checklist suggests prioritising a few key data categories as a starting point, including plastic waste generation and collection, import/export of plastic products, domestic production, and waste treatment methods. These areas are often aligned with existing data collection systems, such as customs and waste management records. By concentrating on these fundamental aspects, countries can begin to develop a basic understanding of their plastic lifecycle, from production to waste management.
National plans are expected to be a key component of the treaty's implementation, allowing countries to set nationally determined targets and policies tailored to their specific circumstances. By prioritising these key data categories, countries can establish a baseline understanding of their plastic flows, crucial for setting realistic and ambitious reduction targets in their national plans.
To successfully implement the Checklist, it is recommended that countries adopt a whole-of-government approach, regularly review and update their data and progress, invest in capacity building for practitioners and leverage international expertise.
The Checklist, currently focused on physical plastics flows, will be further expanded in future. This expansion will include additional data categories such as socio-economic indicators, environmental data, regulatory frameworks, infrastructure capacity, and existing initiatives. By broadening its scope, the checklist aims to transition from a tool that tracks material flows to one that provides a comprehensive understanding of plastic-related challenges.
Plastic pollution is a complex issue requiring a multifaceted approach. The broader checklist will enable policymakers and researchers to develop more informed and effective strategies for plastics management, taking into account the complex relationships between plastics, society, and the environment. As we continue to understand these interconnections better, the checklist will continue to evolve, improving our ability to address plastic-related issues in different contexts.
By starting to use the Checklist now, governments can enhance their understanding of available national data, ultimately supporting them to:
The global plastics treaty has the potential to be the catalyst to finally close the plastics data gap. To do this, the final treaty language needs to ensure a transparent reporting and monitoring system that requires participation by all countries, but with the necessary flexibility built in to reflect the very different capacity that countries currently have in terms of plastics data.
The Checklist is a critical first step – enabling countries to understand their current data and what is required to transparently demonstrate progress and increase ambition over time to end plastic pollution.