Global and ASEAN Status of Plastic Pollution

The environmental impact of plastics on the natural environment has been frequently discussed over the past decade (Cottom, Cook, and Velis, 2024; Jambeck et al., 2015). A discussion at the World Economic Forum in 2016 sparked a global debate and prompted a call for action on plastics as well as research to address the projected increase in plastic pollution (World Economic Forum, 2016). Around the same time, global policy efforts to combat plastic pollution gained momentum following the 2015 Group of Seven (G7) Elmau Summit in Germany and the adoption of the Ocean Plastics Charter at the G7 Charlevoix Summit in Canada in 2018 (despite non-adoption by the United States and Japan). Then, in 2019, the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit held in Osaka agreed on the Osaka Blue Ocean Vision, aiming for zero additional marine plastic pollution by 2050. At the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) 5.2 in Nairobi in 2022, Resolution 5/14 to End Plastic Pollution: Towards a Legally Binding International Agreement was adopted, establishing an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC) to draft a treaty.