Rethinking ocean plastic solutions

If there’s one thing to take away from the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC 2025) and the ocean plastics crisis, it’s that solutions do exist, but that they’re not scaling, not enforced and not shared equally.

Cleanup technology may help in pollution hotspot areas, but they treat symptoms, not causes and are cost intensive. Recycling has a role, but its effectiveness is vastly overstated and most plastics are actually not recyclable to date. Individual actions - whilst valuable - won’t stop a system designed to produce waste. 

We need to rethink the global plastics economy from the top down. That means:

• Capping virgin plastic production at global, regional and national levels

• Banning non-essential single-use plastics

• Mandating product redesign for durability, reuse and zero microplastic and hazardous emissions

• Supporting global south waste infrastructure through climate finance and fair trade

• Ensuring that new international treaties are binding, with monitoring and penalties

  
  

We’re not starting from square one. The Basel Convention (2019) now regulates some plastic waste trade. The EU’s Single-Use Plastics Directive has set real limits on certain products, and treaty negotiations under UNEA could lead to the world’s first global agreement on plastic pollution.

Oil and Gas Blocking Change

All of this must be paired with political transparency. We must call out oil and gas industries blocking change and admit that current market logic - endless production and disposal - is incompatible with a liveable planet. 

Plastic isn’t just a material. It’s a lens on global inequality, broken governance and environmental injustice. Tackling this issue will do more than protect the oceans - it will show whether we’re capable of changing the very systems that got us here, for the sake of future generations.

We need action now more than ever. We can’t just raise public awareness, we have to take accountability, raise money and be brave about cleaning up our mess and stopping plastic from ever getting into our oceans - by stopping making it.

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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk

Image: TurnOffThePlasticTap  - Image by Von Wong (ST ref: 1310)

Thanks to Frédérique Mongodin from Seas at Risk and Laura Díaz Sánchez from BFFP for editorial support.