Corporate lobbyists push back against plastic cuts in Africa’s treaty talks

KENYA – Environmental groups are warning that mounting corporate influence is threatening efforts to secure meaningful plastic reduction targets in Africa, as negotiations for the UN Global Plastic Treaty enter a decisive stage at the INC-5.2 talks.

Merissa Naidoo, plastic program manager at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Break Free From Plastic Africa, says the treaty presents “a momentous opportunity” to address a problem that “transgresses boundaries.”

However, she warns that industry lobbyists are more prominent than in earlier rounds, outnumbering environmental voices and even some national delegations.

Analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law shows fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists outnumber the combined diplomatic teams of all 27 EU member states and the EU (233).

Some have even joined national delegations, including Egypt, Kazakhstan, China, Iran, Chile, and the Dominican Republic.

Naidoo argues that treaty negotiations must go beyond waste management to include binding commitments to reduce plastic production.

“If we’re not closing the tap upstream and are only worried about mopping the floor, it’s not going to get us anywhere,” she says.

While contact groups debate articles on product design, chemicals, and waste management, contentious issues include excluding energy recovery and waste-to-energy projects from acceptable practices.

Naidoo backs a proposal from the UK and Panama to tackle emissions and leaks across plastics’ full life cycle and supports a Switzerland-Mexico motion — endorsed by 77 countries — to ban the trade of hazardous plastic products and chemicals.

Basel convention link

She stresses the need for cohesion between the treaty and the Basel Convention on waste, calling current provisions “weak” and “voluntary.”

GAIA is pressing for language that prioritizes plastic prevention at the top of the waste hierarchy and bans harmful disposal methods such as incineration, pyrolysis, and cement kiln burning.

Beyond policy, Naidoo highlights the human impact, especially on women waste pickers in Africa, many of whom head households.

They face discrimination, harassment, and low pay in a male-dominated sector. She cites Kenya’s Taka Taka Solutions project, funded by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, where waste pickers allege exclusion and unchanged working conditions despite promised reforms.

Naidoo warns that without addressing both the systemic overproduction of plastics and the social inequities in waste management, Africa risks locking itself into a future of escalating pollution, fragile livelihoods, and weakened recycling systems.

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