This House would ban single-use plastics globally.

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The EU's 2021 ban has measurably reduced beach litter. India's rollout has had patchy enforcement. The global treaty negotiations are stuck on which plastics to include.

Background

The EU's 2021 Single-Use Plastics Directive banned 10 of the most-littered items (cutlery, plates, straws, cotton buds, polystyrene containers). Beach-litter audits show a 40-50% reduction in those specific items in the first two years. India announced a similar ban in 2022 with patchy enforcement at the state level. The UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, which started in 2022 and are scheduled to conclude in 2026, are deadlocked between a production-cap coalition (Norway, Rwanda, EU) and a recycling-focused coalition (US, Saudi Arabia, China).

Government opens with

Single-use plastics are a 70-year experiment that has demonstrably failed the ocean.

Opposition responds with

A blanket ban without parallel investment in alternatives shifts the externality to glass production and food spoilage, both of which are worse on different axes.

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