The Canadian government is hosting nearly 200 countries, global nongovernmental organizations and corporations for the fourth session of theThey will work to advance the world’s first plastics treaty, expected to be finalized this fall in Korea and codified in January 2025. That meeting could be in Ecuador, Peru, Rwanda, or Senegal.
Fitterling believes all feedstocks and technologies are needed, as well as collective action where policy drives investment and change, and every global citizen do their part.“If I go back a decade or more, we were starting to focus on this area, and there wasn’t a strong demand at the brand owner level to take the recycled content,” Fitterling said.
During the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic, plastics were critical components of personal protective equipment. When addressing food shortages from climate disasters, bottled water and plastic-wrapped food supplies are essential, according to ACC.In 2023, the global plastics market totaled $712 billion dollars according to Statista; it’s expected to grow to more than a $1 trillion market by 2033.
He endorses a new digital watermarking technology that developed countries, including the United States, could adopt. “When you get a package, there’s a watermark in it that may not be visible to the naked eye, but an optical sorter can pick it up in an advanced recycling facility and spread it out, so you get a higher quality raw material,” he said.
At the moment, the U.N. is suggesting an idea to replace laundry detergent in giant plastic jugs with a small dissolvable tablet, sans packaging. “It makes plastic the lowest CO2 per pound of product footprint that’s out there. That’s important,” Fitterling said.