Editorial

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12275
• Author: Harro Asselt
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Published date: 01 November 2018

EDITORIAL

At the end of 2017, David Attenborough's documentary series Blue

Planet II managed to capture the problem of plastic pollution in our

oceans in ways never seen before by the general public. Along with

new research revealing the scale of the problem, the haunting

images of the impacts of plastic pollution on our marine environment

have helped to lift global attention for the problem to new heights

in recent years. To give some examples: the new United Nations

(UN) #CleanSeas campaign was launched under the headline of ‘UN

Declares War on Ocean Plastic’,

1

and 2018's World Environment

Day had as its theme ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’.

2

National and subna-

tional governments all over the world –including France, Kenya, Cali-

fornia and New Delhi –have either started banning various forms of

plastic, mostly focusing on single‐use plastics such as straws or plas-

tic bags, or are considering doing so.

3

A new Global Plastic Action

Partnership, launched by the United Kingdom and Canada, and

involving major plastic polluters such as Coca‐Cola, PepsiCo and

Dow, was launched in September 2018 with a pledge to avert the

growth of global plastics pollution by 2025.

4

And the global ‘Break

Free from Plastic’campaign has attracted the participation of more

than 1,300 organizations.

5

Yet notwithstanding the mounting attention, plastic pollution con-

tinues to be a major problem. Plastic production has increased more

than 200‐fold since 1950.

6

While a small part of the plastics is recy-

cled, a large majority ends up in landfills or gets incinerated.

7

For

2010, it was estimated that 275 million metric tons of plastic waste

was generated, of which 4.8–12.7 million tons entered the ocean.

8

The situation seems so dire that, according to one dramatic estimate,

‘the ocean is expected to contain 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes

of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight)’.

9

However, the problem of plastic pollution has multiple dimensions,

going well beyond the impacts on the marine environment. There is a

North–South dimension in that many high‐income countries are able

to manage the waste produced, whereas other countries are less able

to do so. Accordingly, plastic waste is a particular problem in lower‐

income countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

10

This problem is

exacerbated by plastics trade from higher‐to lower‐income coun-

tries.

11

In addition, the problem of plastic pollution is closely inter-

twined with the production of fossil fuels, with more than 99 percent

of plastics produced by chemicals stemming from fossil fuels.

12

Following the growing awareness of the scale of the problem,

the international community has started to consider legal options to

address plastics pollution, ranging from employing existing soft and

hard law frameworks (e.g., the Honolulu Strategy or the Basel Con-

vention on hazardous waste trade) to developing a new plastics

treaty from scratch. Moreover, new regulation of plastics is being

debated in the European Union (EU), where plastics have been pri-

marily addressed through the REACH (Registration, Evaluation,

Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Regulation and the

Union's waste legislation. The European Commission launched a new

Plastics Strategy in January 2018

13

and put forward a proposal for a

new Directive banning single‐use plastics in May,

14

both of which

promise a new direction for the EU's legal response to plastics.

Against this backdrop, this RECIEL special issue brings together a

timely collection of articles on the international and European regu-

lation of plastics. The issue aims to assess the progress made so far

at the international level, as well as outline options for further devel-

oping the international legal framework. Moreover, the issue seeks

to examine the way the EU has responded to plastics so far, as well

as the implications of further regulation of plastics.

The first article in the special issue by Karen Raubenheimer, Alis-

tair McIlgorm and Nilüfer Oral –the authors of a report for the United

Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) of the United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP) on the effectiveness of governance

approaches to address marine plastic litter and microplastics

15

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© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

1

<http://web.unep.org/unepmap/un-declares-war-ocean-plastic>.

2

<http://worldenvironmentday.global/en/news-category/beat-plastic-pollution>.

3

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Single-use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustain-

ability (UNEP 2018).

4

<https://www.weforum.org/press/2018/09/beyond-bags-bottles-and-straws-new-partne

rship-to-tackle-plastic-waste-from-source-to-sea/>.

5

<https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org>.

6

R Geyer, JR Jambeck and KL Law, ‘Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made’

(2017) 3 Science Advances e1700782.

7

ibid.

8

JR Jambeck et al, ‘Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean’(2015) 347 Science

768.

9

Ellen MacArthur Foundation, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics

(2016) 17 (emphasis added).

10

Jambeck et al (n 8). This is even more so if we look at riverine inputs of plastic waste

only, with most waste being introduced into the oceans from the Yangtze (China) and

Ganges (India, Bangladesh). LC Lebreton et al, ‘River Plastic Emissions to the World's

Oceans’(2017) 8 Nature Communications 15611.

11

AL Brooks, S Wang and JR Jambeck, ‘The Chinese Import Ban and its Impact on Global

Plastic Waste Trade’(2018) 4 Science Advances eaat0131.

12

Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), ‘Fossils, Plastics, & Petrochemical

Feedstocks’(CIEL 2017).

13

Commission (EU), ‘A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy’(Communica-

tion) COM(2018) 28 final, 16 January 2018.

14

Commission (EU), ‘Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council

on the Reduction of the Impact of Certain Plastic Products on the Environment’(Communi-

cation) COM(2018) 340 final, 28 May 2018.

15

UNEP ‘Combating Marine Plastic Litter and Microplastics: An Assessment of the Effect-

iveness of Relevant International, Regional and Subregional Governance Strategies and

Approaches’UN Doc UNEP/AHEG/2018/1/INF/3 (11 April 2018).

DOI: 10.1111/reel.12275

RECIEL. 2018;27:207–209. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel

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