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| Just when you think the Administration has done everything conceivable to harm human health and damage the environment, it pulls another card out of its sleeve. This time, it is attempting to weaken an international plastic treaty by arguing that unrestricted plastic production is a matter of national security. Who knew? All that stands between us and imminent invasion are plastic spoons. While it is plausible that some plastic production is important to national security, which could easily be negotiated with exemptions, the Administration seeks a “broad loophole” on national security grounds. Our source is reporting on a diplomatic memo U.S. officials have been circulating in global plastics treaty negotiations. The memo warns that restricting plastic production could threaten American national security. Never mind the actual threat. Plastic pollution has already topped 57 million tons a year. Production is on track to nearly triple by 2060. And the annual global health toll has been estimated at $1.5 trillion in asthma, cancer, and reproductive harm. That’s the emergency. But, unsurprisingly, it didn’t make the memo. Last year, the same bloc of oil-producing nations torpedoed treaty talks in Geneva. The negotiating text has largely bent to fit their demands. The latest draft looks almost exactly like the one nations rejected a year ago, except production limits have been pushed further out of reach. One legal expert put it plainly: the new draft cuts the international response off at the knees. So the industry that spent decades telling us to recycle our way out of the problem they created is now telling us plastic is a matter of defense readiness. Negotiators will reconvene in Bangkok September 27–30 to try to salvage something from this text before formal talks resume next spring. Even if they succeed, any treaty needs two-thirds of the Senate to ratify it. That fight doesn’t end in Geneva or Bangkok. It comes home to Congress. We also don’t have to wait on any of this. Seven states — California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington — have already made plastic producers pay for the waste they create, proof that real accountability doesn’t have to rely on an international treaty. Join us in demanding plastic producers own the mess they’ve made! |