What’s up with the global plastics treaty?

December 22, 2022

December 13, 2022


Today's guest blog is authored by Jon Smieja of the GreenBiz Group. The original post can be read here.


According to Pew and SystemIQ, plastic flows into the ocean are expected to triple by 2040. Immediate action, though, could stem the tide by more than 80 percent.


That’s why when nearly 200 countries agreed to work toward a treaty to end the plastic pollution crisis in March, the circularity community cheered. That cheering, of course, was tempered by the fact that there is a long way to go and likely a lot of compromises to be made. Fortunately for all of us waiting, the International Negotiating Committee (INC) meetings have started. Earlier this week, I caught up with Erin Simon of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Dave Ford of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network (OPLN), both of whom were in Uruguay for INC-1, to learn more about the process.


First off, let me start by saying how amazing it is that we are at this point. The unanimous decision in Nairobi to start the treaty process was monumental. Even more amazing is that they chose the aggressive starting point of focusing on the whole lifecycle of plastics rather than just waste management. With multiple proposals on the table back then, the parties could have just as easily started with a less ambitious proposal. When I asked about this, Simon said, "we’re feeling hopeful because we have a better chance at success since the negotiation process is already inclusive of many of the elements WWF sees as necessary." As we know from recent political trends, it is important to start on strong ground and let the negotiations bring you back toward reality rather than conceding too much out of the gate.


There are two major reasons member states didn’t settle for less, according to Simon. "Countries already have broad alignment on the severity of the issue and the risk of both inaction and delayed response," Simon said. "That's amazing." Secondly, and very importantly, members of the business community came out in favor of the more aggressive approach and have been visible proponents of something meaningful from the start.


Where are we now?


Today, INC-1 is in the rearview mirror and reports are starting to come out about what happened there and what it means for future negotiations. A few things are clear from my conversations with Simon and Ford:

To some extent, these negotiations have precedent, like the Montreal Protocol and the Paris Agreement, that they can use to guide discussions toward the best outcomes.


These first couple of INC meetings will focus largely on nation states’ starting points and the process and procedures that will be used to narrow in on a specific agreement. As Ford put it, "you can feel stuck in the mud at times at this big picture stage of the process" as the early negotiations are more or less laying the groundwork and sequencing for future meetings, "but all of this hard work at the beginning is slowly getting the ball rolling downhill for the hard work to come at future INCs."


Many stakeholders are interested in the process. A multi-stakeholder forum held the day before INC-1 drew more than 1,000 individuals. Engaging external stakeholders in the negotiations will continue to be important throughout the process, but is likely to get more difficult as details are hammered out between the international delegates.


To be clear, this will not be an easy process. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a group of 10 people to agree on something as simple as dinner, much less an international delegation of more than 150 nation states to agree on a treaty that could forever change our interaction with plastics.


There will be winners, losers, power struggles, geopolitical arguments and likely some very frustrated civil society organizations and activists. With that in mind, let’s check in on some major sticking points early in the process.

The continuum of starting points


To say there is a lot of work to do would be an understatement. According to Simon and Ford, each nation state and major stakeholder in this conversation is starting from a unique spot on a continuum. On one end are those stakeholders pushing for National Action Plans (NAPs) where each country is, on its own, responsible to meet the criteria of the treaty. NAPs are the organizing method for meeting the Paris Agreement requirements and are seen by many activists as ineffective in dealing with large, global problems. On the other end are those stakeholders focused on global measures, including a cohort of more than 40 countries known as the High Ambition Coalition. In other words, they favor a coordinated effort across the world that could affect global supply chains and policies. Of course, with over 160 nation states in the discussion, you can imagine dots all over the middle of the continuum as well.


When I asked Simon about the difference between NAPs and global measures, she simply said, "You can imagine how much more coordinated these global supply chains will be if their targets for improvement are focused on the same outcomes." I take that to mean that global measures are likely to drive the massive changes we need more efficiently than country-specific NAPs. Global measures can also help the largest companies focus their efforts across countries and regions for the best outcomes. That being said, countries come to these negotiations knowing full well what is possible politically in their nation and will have a set starting position, from where they will negotiate accordingly.


Engaging stakeholders


In any international treaty process, there are likely to be stakeholders that will be underrepresented in the final negotiations who will also be the ones that will bear the brunt of any failures of the treaty to meet its goals.


There were positive signs for engaging communities at INC-1. First, as mentioned earlier, there was a full day of external engagement before the gathering started. Second, many groups were represented in the meetings throughout the week including fenceline communities, an Indigenous coalition, youth representatives and a group representing the informal waste sector.


This is all incredibly important, but will likely be difficult to maintain. As the INC meetings move from early phase discussions to nuts and bolts negotiations, nation state representatives are likely to narrow their focus on political jockeying, causing opportunities to hear from external stakeholders to decrease. As a result, it is important for these groups to have a loud voice in the discussions now and make their demands for the final treaty clear.   


What’s next?


The entirety of the negotiating process is slated to play out over the next two years with five INC meetings on the calendar. The last scheduled meeting will take place in December 2024 with the hope that a full treaty will be ratified shortly after. The next INC, however, is slated for spring and, according to Ford, will likely still include a lot of codifying the macro rules of negotiation before the nation states can start to engage in the minutia of final treaty language.


I’ll keep you updated here with the passing of each INC, but if you’d like to learn more about the first edition directly from folks who were there, you can sign up to join Ocean Plastics Leadership Network’s open dialogue meeting from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST Monday by registering here.


Here are more resources on the global plastics treaty for your enjoyment:

First session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-1) Quick Guide (World Wildlife Fund, 11/2022)

Towards a treaty to end plastic pollution: Global rules to solve a global problem (World Wildlife Fund, 11/2022)

Earth Negotiations Bulletin Recap of INC-1 (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 12/2022)

Business Coalition for a plastics treaty

UNEP homepage of the INC process

Erin Simon on the main stage at Circularity 22.



Disclaimer: Guest blogs represent the opinion of the writers and may not reflect the policy or position of the Northeast Recycling Council, Inc.

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2025 Recycling Markets Took a Beating in a Weak Retail Year

By Chaz Miller • January 5, 2026
2025 was not a good year for recycling markets. Prices went down for everything in your bin. The only real difference is how badly each material got hit and why. Let’s start with paper, the most important recyclable in terms of weight and volume. Old Corrugated Container (OCC, boxes) prices started rising in the spring of 2023, peaking for several months in the summer of 2024. A long slide then began and lasted for almost all of 2025. Prices for Residential Mixed Paper (RMP) did the same. Nationally, OCC is now at $46.88 per ton and RMP is $20.31 a ton. OCC went down by a third while RMP went down by half. The “good” news is that these prices have been lower in the last five years. RMP, after all, had a negative value early in 2020 and then for a few months in late 2022. (All prices in this article are national prices from RecyclingMarkets.net as of December 31). The 2023 rise and then fall of recycled paper prices was the result of increased capacity to use OCC and RMP as raw materials along with declining overall demand for boxes. New recycled content paper capacity started coming online in 2017, peaking in 2023 when five new mills opened. Those new mills, eager to build up supply lines, caused prices to go up. Existing capacity had no choice but to also pay more. At the same time, demand for new boxes was going down. In fact, box demand has been going down for four years. Something had to give. In 2025, nine existing paper mills announced they would be closing. Old, more expensive, and less efficient to operate, they couldn’t compete with the new mills. All four plastic resins lost value but the impact varied by resin. Natural HDPE, (mostly milk jugs) lost a third of its value. Polypropylene (mostly dairy products) went down by 40 percent. Color HDPE (consumer products such as detergent and shampoo) went down by 48 percent and PET beverage bottles went down by two thirds. Natural HDPE is 46.81 cents a pound. Even at the lower price, this resin remains in a good price range. PET and polypropylene are both 5.38 cents a pound. Recycled PET rose steadily from the summer of 2023 to the summer of 2024. Then it declined equally steadily until it reached a record low of 4.19 cents in early October of this year. Cheap recycled resin imports, too much domestic virgin PET resin and lower summer beverage demand gave prices nowhere to go but down. Recycled PET resin imports are now subject to tariffs, which may be responsible for its recent increase. Nonetheless, its price remains in the doldrums. Polypropylene generally has a low price except when new capacity is coming online and building up capacity. For 46 of the 72 months since January 2020, its price has been less than a dime a pound. For 17 months, it’s been at its current not very good price or less. Color HDPE is 2.81 cents a pound. This resin depends on construction markets because the color can’t be taken out of the resin. New housing starts have been in decline for four years. It also set a record low price in 2025. Aluminum and steel cans are recycling market’s happy place. Their prices went down by 9.3 and 8.7 percent. Aluminum cans have a national average price of 78.75 cents while steel cans go for $158.75 a ton. Over the last few years, the aluminum industry smartly expanded into non-alcoholic beverages such as water and fruit juices. Those new uses keep demand up. After sliding last year, steel can prices stabilized. As for glass, it’s price rarely changes. Clear glass bottles go for $38.56 a ton, brown for $27.19 and green for $10.31. Those prices all rose slightly in the spring of 2023. Mixed glass from single stream curbside collection has a “negative tipping fee” of $25.31 a ton. In other words, the MRF pays the end market to buy it. That price became slightly more negative this year. The glass industry has been in decline for some time, a victim of lighter weight aluminum cans and plastic bottles. In addition, Americans are drinking less alcohol. That’s the biggest user of glass bottles. Our beleaguered economy is hurting recycling markets. Recyclables are just raw materials looking for a buyer. Those buyers are purchasing managers making a bet on how much raw materials they will need for their companies’ products. This can be, say, aluminum cans, boxes to ship those empty cans to beverage companies or boxes to deliver filled cans to retail outlets. When buyers are optimistic, they buy more. In 2025, they were gloomy. Prices of all of these recyclables have been hurt by declining unit sales of consumer products and the resulting decline in box demand. We are in a “ K-shaped” economic recovery from the pandemic. This means the recovery’s impact varied by economic status. Wealthy households now account for half of consumer spending on goods and services. They spend more on “services” such as trips and entertainment than on goods. Lower income households, however, are squeezed between paying for necessities such as housing, health care, insurance and food before everything else. They are pinching their nickels and looking for bargains. Simply stated, due to the K-shaped recovery, sales are down and we need fewer packages and shipping boxes. So what will happen in 2026? The loss of so much older paper capacity is bringing demand and supply back into a better balance. Look for prices to rebound a bit. Plastic prices will remain soft barring a reversal of the K-shaped recovery. PET prices, have the most potential if beverage demand returns. Color HDPE, will remain in the doldrums until new housing construction increases. Natural HDPE will stay where it is or go up a bit. Polypropylene will probably stay where it is. As for glass, change isn’t likely. I realize that’s not optimistic. Given the projected rise in health, insurance and energy costs this year, Americans will still be pinching pennies. Box production will decline as unit sales fall. Our K-shaped economy needs to become a rising economic tide lifting all boats. Recyclables, afterall, are commodities subject to the economy’s ups and downs. When our economy truly rebounds, recycling markets will thrive again. Read on Waste360.

Commodity values further decline for Northeastern MRFs

By Waste Dive • December 9, 2025
MRFs in the Northeast United States reported a decrease in average prices for nearly all recycled commodities — with glass and bulky rigids providing the rare bright spot — during the third quarter of 2025, according to a report from the Northeast Recycling Council. This continues the downward trend reported in the region since Q2. In Q3, average blended commodity value without residuals was $75.14, a decrease of 21.9% from the previous quarter. When calculating the value with residuals, prices were $60.16, a decrease of 27.24%, says the quarterly MRF Commodity Values Survey Report. Single-stream MRFs saw values decrease sequentially by 23.32% without residuals and 28.86% with residuals. Dual-stream or source-separated MRFs saw decreases of 17.33% without residuals and 21.76% with residuals compared to last quarter. The report includes information from 19 MRFs representing 12 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia. The NERC report is meant to offer a regional look at price trends and is a part of the group’s ongoing work to promote and boost recycled commodity supply and demand in the Northeast. It surveys a variety of MRFs in numerous markets, including those in five states with beverage container deposit laws, which it says affect material flows into MRFs. NERC says its reports are not meant to be used as a price guide for MRF contracts because it “represents the diversity of operating conditions in these locations.” NERC adopted a new report format at the beginning of 2025 that now provides average prices for specific commodities in addition to aggregate values. According to the Q3 report, most commodity categories fell significantly, with the exception of glass and the “special case of bulky rigids.” The average price for bulky rigids in the quarter was $43.26, a 93% increase from the previous quarter. NERC did not offer insight into the increase. The average price for PET was $125.58 in the quarter, down 60%, while prices for Natural HDPE fetched about $955.31 a ton, down 46%. OCC saw an average price of about $86.23, down 10%, according to the report. Major publicly-traded waste companies echoed similar commodity trends during their Q3 earnings calls . Casella, which operates in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, reported that its average recycled commodity revenue per ton was down 29% year over year in Q3. To reduce the impact from low commodity values, the company typically shares risk with customers by adjusting tip fees in down markets. Recent upgrades at a Connecticut MRF helped raise revenue for processing volumes in the quarter, executives said. Meanwhile, Republic Services is planning to build a polymer center for processing recycled plastic in Allentown, Pennsylvania, next year. During the Q3 earnings call in October, executives said they expect strong demand at such centers from both a pricing and volume standpoint, despite the decline in commodity prices. The company already has similar polymer centers in Indianapolis and Las Vegas, which consume curbside-collected plastics from Republic’s recycling centers and produce products such as clear, hot-wash PET flake and sorted bales of other plastics. Read on Waste Dive.

Northeast Commodity Values Continue Steep Decline in Q3 2025

By Megan Fontes • December 4, 2025
NERC’s Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) Commodity Values Survey Report for the period July - September 2025 showed a continued decline in the average commodity prices for Q3 2025. The average value of all commodities decreased by 21.90% without residuals to $75.14 and by 27.24% with residuals to $60.16, as compared to last quarter. Single stream decreased by 23.32% without residuals and 28.86% with residuals, while dual stream / source separated decreased by 17.33% without residuals and 21.76% with residuals compared to last quarter. Dual stream MRFs saw a slightly smaller decrease with residuals than single stream. Individual commodity price averages this quarter denote the decrease felt across all commodity categories apart from glass and the special case of bulky rigids.