Joe Brock, John Geddie

(Reuters) – International brands such as Coca Cola, PepsiCo and PepsiCo (NASDAQ 🙂 demanded Monday a global pact on plastic pollution. It would include a cut in plastic production. The oil industry is a major growth market.

A conference of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA 5.2), will be held later in this year. It is expected that world leaders meet to discuss a deal to address the crisis caused by plastic waste.

The details of any agreement are not clear. It is unclear if it will be focused on recycling and waste management or if the deal will take more difficult steps like curbing plastic production. This move would face opposition from major oil companies and other plastic-producing nations, such as the United States.

The more than 70 signatories to Monday’s joint statement https://www.plasticpollutiontreaty.org/UNEA include consumer goods companies like Unilever (NYSE:) and Nestle, which sell a myriad of products in single-use plastic from shampoo to chocolate bars, as well as retailer Walmart (NYSE:) and French bank BNP Paribas (OTC:).

The statement stated that “We are at an important point in time for establishing an ambitious U.N. Treaty.” It also noted that any agreement should “reduce virgin material production and usage.”

“UNEA 5.2 represents the most important, auspicious time to reverse the tide of the plastic pollution crisis worldwide. It is too important to not miss it,” said the statement.

Less than 10% https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-plastic-recycling of all the plastic ever made has been recycled, and a Reuters investigation last year https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling revealed that new recycling technologies touted by the plastics industry have struggled to combat the problem.

Production of plastic, which comes from oil or gas, will double in the coming 20 years. Energy majors will have this as a source of future income, since the market for oil and gas is declining.

While global recycling scaling up is crucial for tackling plastic waste, it will not stop the plastic pollution skyrocketing without delimiting production. A landmark 2020 Pew Charitable Trusts Study found that.

As pressure mounts on firms that sell products in hard-to-recycle plastic to tackle the resulting waste, some have teamed up with cement makers to burn plastic waste as a cheap fuel in the developing world, a Reuters investigation found last year https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-cement.