Memorandum Calling for Malaysian Leadership and Ambition at the Plastic Treaty Negotiation (INC5.2)
Our Earth is choking with plastic and chemicals. The overproduction and overconsumption of plastic are threatening life on Earth – our biodiversity, our food security, our health, our climate. Plastic pollution is threatening everything that we love and making us sick. But we still can do something about it!
Countries globally are negotiating a groundbreaking international agreement — the Global Plastics Treaty – which aims to tackle plastic pollution at its source, focusing on prevention, reduction, and sustainability, going beyond cleanup efforts, and targeting systemic change. The negotiating committee has had five meetings. The upcoming final meeting (INC-5.2) will be held in Geneva from 4-14 August 2025.
One hundred organisations have signed on a memorandum calling on the Malaysian government to negotiate an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty that can protect human and environmental health from plastic and chemical pollution. This memorandum was submitted to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and relevant Ministers on 14 July 2025.
Our demands are that the Treaty must include:
1. An Article focused on protecting human health from the harms of plastic production, consumption, and disposal, to strengthen research and monitoring of the impact of microplastic and plastic-related chemicals on human health, with an eye towards rehabilitation, compensation, and remediation for all impacted by plastic pollution, including workers across the plastic life cycle, especially waste-pickers, indigenous peoples and Global South communities, through just transition.
2. Legally binding global controls, rather than voluntary or national measures that are ineffective in addressing the transboundary nature of plastic pollution, such as a global target to reduce the production and use of primary plastics polymers; a global list of hazardous plastic-related chemicalsthat must be eliminated over time; global criteria to identify non-essential, unnecessary, problematic plastic products and a global list of products that must be phased out.
3. Measures to improve plastic product designthat minimises plastic waste through reusability and repairability, with requirements on reporting, transparency, traceability and harmonised disclosureof plastic production and waste (including associated chemicals), to ensure that hazardous groups of chemicals are identified and progressively substituted with safer alternatives.
4. Measures to end plastic pollution by regulating the emissionsof plastic-related chemicals (through a pollutant release and transfer register) as well as controlling the leakages and releases of plastics, including microplastics, plastic pellets, and fishing gear, through new legislation.
5. Waste prevention measures, such as reuse and refillinfrastructure that emphasises the circulation of standardised and safe reusable packaging; mandatory extended producer responsibility that prioritises product design, waste minimisation, and reverse logistics for waste collection and safe recycling, informed by comprehensive life cycle assessments to ensure verifiable environmental benefits; and mandatory prior informed consent and data transparency for all plastic waste exports; while rejecting technologies or substitutes that negatively impacts human health and the environment, and do not address plastic overproduction, including chemical recycling, incineration, refuse-derived-fuel, and regrettable plastic substitutes such as bio-based, biodegradable and compostable plastics which have been shown to contain toxic chemicals dan heavy metals.
Note: This memorandum will remain open for endorsements at https://bit.ly/plastictreatyMY until 3 August 2025, before INC5.2 begins.
Click here for the full version of the memorandum:
https://consumer.org.my/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/250714-Memorandum-Calling-on-Malaysian-Leadership-at-INC5.2-Plastic-Treaty.pdf