Jamaica continues fight against plastic pollution

KINGSTON, Jamaica--As the world moves closer to establishing a legally binding international agreement on plastic pollution, Jamaica is reaffirming its commitment to push for a full life-cycle approach to plastics during upcoming negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, this August.

Chief Technical Director (CTD) for Development Planning, Environment Policy and Management in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Gillian Guthrie, highlighted Jamaica’s active involvement in global efforts to tackle the plastic crisis, during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank.

“Although Jamaica has instituted a ban on specific types of plastic products, globally there’s a move to negotiate a new international legally binding instrument to address plastic pollution, including in the marine environment,” she informed.

“This started with Resolution 5/14 from the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5), which is the governing body for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and we were set a task to negotiate a new instrument and have that negotiation completed at the end of 2024 in Busan, Korea,” Guthrie said.

Despite this new instrument being developed to cover the full life cycle of plastics, from production design to disposal, Guthrie pointed out that “unfortunately, we were unable to conclude the negotiations at the end of December 2024, so we are reconvening in Geneva, Switzerland in August 2025, to hopefully conclude the negotiations and have a new internationally legally binding instrument to address the full life cycle of plastics”.